Case of A. and Others v. The United Kingdom

CONSEIL
DE LEUROPE
COUNCIL
OF EUROPE
COUR EUROPENNE DES DROITS DE LHOMME

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
GRAND CHAMBER
CASE OF A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

(Application no. 3455/05)
JUDGMENT
STRASBOURG
19 February 2009
A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
In the case of A. and Others v. the United Kingdom,

The European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand Chamber
composed of:
Jean-Paul Costa, President,
Christos Rozakis,
Nicolas Bratza,
Franoise Tulkens,
Josep Casadevall,
Giovanni Bonello,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Lech Garlicki,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Ljiljana Mijovi,
Egbert Myjer,
Davd Thr Bjrgvinsson,
George Nicolaou,
Ledi Bianku,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Mihai Poalelungi, judges,
and Michael OBoyle, Deputy Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 21 May 2008 and on 4 February 2009,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the lastmentioned date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in an application (no. 3455/05) against the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lodged with the Court under
Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention) by eleven non-United Kingdom
nationals (the applicants), on 21 January 2005. The President acceded to
the applicants request not to have their names disclosed (Rule 47 3 of the
Rules of Court).
2. The applicants were represented by Birnberg Peirce and Partners, a
firm of solicitors practising in London. The United Kingdom Government
(the Government) were represented by their Agent, Mr D. Walton,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
3. The applicants alleged, in particular, that they had been unlawfully
detained, in breach of Articles 3, 5 1 and 14 of the Convention and that
they had not had adequate remedies at their disposal, in breach of Articles 5
4 and 13 of the Convention.
4. The application was allocated to the Fourth Section of the Court

(Rule 52 1). On 11 September 2007 a Chamber of that Section, composed
of Josep Casadevall, Nicolas Bratza, Giovanni Bonello, Kristaq Traja,
Stanislav Pavlovschi, Lech Garlicki, Ljiljana Mijovi, judges, and Lawrence
Early, Section Registrar, relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand
Chamber, neither of the parties having objected to relinquishment
(Article 30 of the Convention and Rule 72).
5. The composition of the Grand Chamber was determined according to
the provisions of Article 27 2 and 3 of the Convention and Rule 24.
6. The applicants and the Government each filed observations on the
merits. In addition, third-party comments were received from two Londonbased non-governmental organisations, Liberty and Justice, which had been
given leave by the President to intervene in the written procedure
(Article 36 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 2).
7. A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building,
Strasbourg, on 21 May 2008 (Rule 59 3).
There appeared before the Court:
(a) for the Government
Mr D. WALTON,
Mr P. SALES QC,
Ms C. IVIMY,
Mr S. BRAVINER-ROMAN,
Ms K. CHALMERS,
Mr E. ADAMS,
Mr J. ADUTT,
Mr L. SMITH,
(b) for the applicants
Ms G. PIERCE,
Ms M. WILLIS STEWART,
Mr D. GUEDALLA,
Mr B. EMMERSON QC,
Mr R. HUSAIN,
Mr D. FRIEDMAN,
Agent,
Counsel,
Advisers;
Solicitors,
Counsel.
The Court heard addresses by Mr Emmerson and Mr Sales and their

answers in reply to questions put by the Court.
THE FACTS
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
8. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised
as follows.
A. The derogation
9. On 11 September 2001 four commercial aeroplanes were hijacked
over the United States of America. Two of them were flown directly at the
Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre and a third at the Pentagon,
causing great loss of life and destruction to property. The Islamist extremist
terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, claimed
responsibility. The United Kingdom joined with the United States of
America in military action in Afghanistan, which had been used as a base
for al-Qaeda training camps.
10. The Government contended that the events of 11 September 2001
demonstrated that international terrorists, notably those associated with alQaeda, had the intention and capacity to mount attacks against civilian
targets on an unprecedented scale. Further, given the loose-knit, global
structure of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and their fanaticism, ruthlessness and
determination, it would be difficult for the State to prevent future attacks. In
the Governments assessment, the United Kingdom, because of its close
links with the United States of America, was a particular target. They
considered that there was an emergency of a most serious kind threatening
the life of the nation. Moreover, they considered that the threat came
principally, but not exclusively, from a number of foreign nationals present
in the United Kingdom, who were providing a support network for Islamist
terrorist operations linked to al-Qaeda. A number of these foreign nationals
could not be deported because of the risk that they would suffer treatment
contrary to Article 3 of the Convention in their countries of origin.
11. On 11 November 2001 the Secretary of State made a derogation
order under section 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (the 1998 Act see
paragraph 94 below) in which he set out the terms of a proposed notification
to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe of a derogation pursuant
to Article 15 of the Convention. On 18 December 2001 the Government
lodged the derogation with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
The derogation notice provided as follows:
Public emergency in the United Kingdom

The terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on
11 September 2001 resulted in several thousand deaths, including many British
victims and others from seventy different countries. In its Resolutions 1368 (2001)
and 1373 (2001), the United Nations Security Council recognised the attacks as a
threat to international peace and security.
The threat from international terrorism is a continuing one. In its Resolution 1373
(2001), the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter,
required all States to take measures to prevent the commission of terrorist attacks,
including by denying safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit
terrorist attacks.
There exists a terrorist threat to the United Kingdom from persons suspected of
involvement in international terrorism. In particular, there are foreign nationals
present in the United Kingdom who are suspected of being concerned in the
commission, preparation or instigation of acts of international terrorism, of being
members of organisations or groups which are so concerned or of having links with
members of such organisations or groups, and who are a threat to the national security
of the United Kingdom.
As a result, a public emergency, within the meaning of Article 15 1 of the
Convention, exists in the United Kingdom.
The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
As a result of the public emergency, provision is made in the Anti-terrorism, Crime
and Security Act 2001, inter alia, for an extended power to arrest and detain a foreign
national which will apply where it is intended to remove or deport the person from the
United Kingdom but where removal or deportation is not for the time being possible,
with the consequence that the detention would be unlawful under existing
domestic-law powers. The extended power to arrest and detain will apply where the
Secretary of State issues a certificate indicating his belief that the persons presence in
the United Kingdom is a risk to national security and that he suspects the person of
being an international terrorist. That certificate will be subject to an appeal to the
Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), established under the Special
Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997, which will have power to cancel it if it
considers that the certificate should not have been issued. There will be an appeal on a
point of law from a ruling by SIAC. In addition, the certificate will be reviewed by
SIAC at regular intervals. SIAC will also be able to grant bail, where appropriate,
subject to conditions. It will be open to a detainee to end his detention at any time by
agreeing to leave the United Kingdom.
The extended power of arrest and detention in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and
Security Act 2001 is a measure which is strictly required by the exigencies of the
situation. It is a temporary provision which comes into force for an initial period of
fifteen months and then expires unless renewed by Parliament. Thereafter, it is subject
to annual renewal by Parliament. If, at any time, in the Governments assessment, the
public emergency no longer exists or the extended power is no longer strictly required
by the exigencies of the situation, then the Secretary of State will, by order, repeal the
provision.
Domestic-law powers of detention (other than under the Anti-terrorism, Crime
and Security Act 2001)
The Government has powers under the Immigration Act 1971 (the 1971 Act) to
remove or deport persons on the ground that their presence in the United Kingdom is
not conducive to the public good on national security grounds. Persons can also be
arrested and detained under Schedules 2 and 3 to the 1971 Act pending their removal
or deportation. The courts in the United Kingdom have ruled that this power of
detention can only be exercised during the period necessary, in all the circumstances
of the particular case, to effect removal and that, if it becomes clear that removal is
not going to be possible within a reasonable time, detention will be unlawful (R. v.
Governor of Durham Prison, ex parte Singh [1984] All ER 983).
Article 5 1 (f) of the Convention
It is well established that Article 5 1 (f) permits the detention of a person with a
view to deportation only in circumstances where action is being taken with a view to
deportation (Chahal v. the United Kingdom (1996) 23 EHRR 413 at paragraph 112).
In that case the European Court of Human Rights indicated that detention will cease to
be permissible under Article 5 1 (f) if deportation proceedings are not prosecuted
with due diligence and that it was necessary in such cases to determine whether the
duration of the deportation proceedings was excessive (paragraph 113).
In some cases, where the intention remains to remove or deport a person on national
security grounds, continued detention may not be consistent with Article 5 1 (f) as
interpreted by the Court in the Chahal case. This may be the case, for example, if the
person has established that removal to their own country might result in treatment
contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. In such circumstances, irrespective of the
gravity of the threat to national security posed by the person concerned, it is well
established that Article 3 prevents removal or deportation to a place where there is a
real risk that the person will suffer treatment contrary to that Article. If no alternative
destination is immediately available then removal or deportation may not, for the time
being, be possible even though the ultimate intention remains to remove or deport the
person once satisfactory arrangements can be made. In addition, it may not be
possible to prosecute the person for a criminal offence given the strict rules on the
admissibility of evidence in the criminal justice system of the United Kingdom and
the high standard of proof required.
Derogation under Article 15 of the Convention
The Government has considered whether the exercise of the extended power to
detain contained in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 may be
inconsistent with the obligations under Article 5 1 of the Convention. As indicated
above, there may be cases where, notwithstanding a continuing intention to remove or
deport a person who is being detained, it is not possible to say that action is being
taken with a view to deportation within the meaning of Article 5 1 (f) as interpreted
by the Court in the Chahal case. To the extent, therefore, that the exercise of the
extended power may be inconsistent with the United Kingdoms obligations under
Article 5 1, the Government has decided to avail itself of the right of derogation
conferred by Article 15 1 of the Convention and will continue to do so until further
notice.
The derogation notice then set out the provisions of Part 4 of the Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Bill 2001.
12. On 12 November 2001 the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill,
containing the clauses which were to eventually become Part 4 of the Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (the 2001 Act see paragraph 90
below), was introduced into the House of Commons. The Bill was passed
by Parliament in two weeks, with three days of debate on the floor of the
House of Commons set aside for its 125 clauses in a restrictive
programming motion, prompting both the Joint Committee of Human
Rights and the Home Affairs Select Committee to complain of the speed
with which they were being asked to consider the matter.
13. The 2001 Act came into force on 4 December 2001. During the
lifetime of the legislation, sixteen individuals, including the present eleven
applicants, were certified under section 21 and detained. The first six
applicants were certified on 17 December 2001 and taken into detention
shortly thereafter. The seventh applicant was certified and detained in early
February 2002; the ninth applicant on 22 April 2002; the eighth applicant on
23 October 2002; the tenth applicant on 14 January 2003; and the eleventh
applicant was certified on 2 October 2003 and kept in detention, having
previously been held under other legislation.
B. The derogation proceedings
14. In proceedings before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission
(SIAC see paragraphs 91-93 below), the first seven applicants challenged
the legality of the derogation, claiming that their detention under the 2001
Act was in breach of their rights under Articles 3, 5, 6 and 14 of the
Convention. Each, in addition, challenged the Secretary of States decision
to certify him as an international terrorist.
15. On 30 July 2002, having examined both open and closed material
and heard submissions from special advocates in addition to counsel for the
parties and for the third party, Liberty, SIAC delivered its ruling on the
legality of the derogation. It held that, on the basis of the open material, it
was satisfied that the threat from al-Qaeda had created a public emergency
threatening the life of the nation, within the meaning of Article 15 of the
Convention, and that the closed material confirmed this view.
SIAC further held that the fact that the objective of protecting the public
from international terrorists could possibly have been achieved by
alternative methods did not demonstrate that the measures actually adopted
were not strictly necessary. Moreover, since the purpose of the detention
was the protection of the United Kingdom, the fact that the detainee was at
liberty to leave demonstrated that the measures were properly tailored to the
state of emergency.
SIAC rejected the applicants complaints under Article 3 of the
Convention. It held that, in so far as they related to conditions of detention,
the applicants should bring proceedings in the ordinary civil courts, and that
SIAC had no jurisdiction to determine such a complaint as it was not a
derogation issue. It further saw no merit in the applicants argument that
detention for an indefinite period was contrary to Article 3. On this point,
SIAC held that the detention was not indefinite, since it was governed by
the time-limits of the 2001 Act itself and since the 2001 Act provided that
each applicants certification was subject to automatic review by SIAC
every six months. In any event, the mere fact that no term had yet been
fixed for preventive detention did not give rise to a breach of Article 3.
SIAC did not accept that Article 6 of the Convention applied to the
certification process. The certification of each applicant as a suspected
international terrorist was not a charge but instead a statement of
suspicion and the proceedings before SIAC were not for the determination
of a criminal charge. Furthermore, there was no relevant civil right at issue
and Article 6 did not apply in its civil limb either.
SIAC did, however, rule that the derogation was unlawful because the
relevant provisions of the 2001 Act unjustifiably discriminated against
foreign nationals, in breach of Article 14 of the Convention. The powers of
the 2001 Act could properly be confined to non-nationals only if the threat
stemmed exclusively, or almost exclusively, from non-nationals and the
evidence did not support that conclusion. In paragraphs 94-95 of its
judgment, SIAC held:
94. If there is to be an effective derogation from the right to liberty enshrined in
Article 5 in respect of suspected international terrorists and we can see powerful
arguments in favour of such a derogation the derogation ought rationally to extend
to all irremovable suspected international terrorists. It would properly be confined to
the alien section of the population only if, as [counsel for the appellants] contends, the
threat stems exclusively or almost exclusively from that alien section.
95. But the evidence before us demonstrates beyond argument that the threat is not
so confined. There are many British nationals already identified mostly in detention
abroad who fall within the definition of suspected international terrorists, and it
was clear from the submissions made to us that in the opinion of the [Secretary of
State] there are others at liberty in the United Kingdom who could be similarly
defined. In those circumstances we fail to see how the derogation can be regarded as
other than discriminatory on the grounds of national origin.
SIAC thus quashed the derogation order of 11 November 2001 and

issued a declaration of incompatibility in respect of section 23 of the 2001
Act under section 4 of the 1998 Act (see paragraph 94 below).
It adjourned the first seven applicants individual appeals against
certification (see paragraphs 24-69 below) pending the outcome of the
Secretary of States appeal and the applicants cross-appeal on points of law
against the above ruling.
16. On 25 October 2002 the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment (A.
and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] EWCA
Civ 1502).
It held that SIAC had been entitled to find that there was a public
emergency threatening the life of the nation. However, contrary to the view
of SIAC, it held that the approach adopted by the Secretary of State could
be objectively justified. There was a rational connection between the
detention of non-nationals who could not be deported because of fears for
their safety, and the purpose which the Secretary of State wished to achieve,
which was to remove non-nationals who posed a threat to national security.
Moreover, the applicants would be detained for no longer than was
necessary before they could be deported or until the emergency was
resolved or they ceased to be a threat to the countrys safety. There was no
discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the Convention, because British
nationals suspected of being terrorists were not in an analogous situation to
similarly suspected foreign nationals who could not be deported because of
fears for their safety. Such foreign nationals did not have a right to remain
in the country but only a right, for the time being, not to be removed for
their own safety. The Court of Appeal added that it was well established in
international law that, in some situations, States could distinguish between
nationals and non-nationals, especially in times of emergency. It further
concluded that Parliament had been entitled to limit the measures proposed
so as to affect only foreign nationals suspected of terrorist links because it
was entitled to reach the conclusion that detention of only the limited class
of foreign nationals with which the measures were concerned was, in the
circumstances, strictly required within the meaning of Article 15 of the
Convention.
The Court of Appeal agreed with SIAC that the proceedings to appeal
against certification were not criminal within the meaning of Article 6 1
of the Convention. It found, however, that the civil limb of Article 6 applied
but that the proceedings were as fair as could reasonably be achieved. It
further held that the applicants had not demonstrated that their detention
amounted to a breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
17. The applicants were granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords,
which delivered its judgment on 16 December 2004 ([2004] UKHL 56).
A majority of the Law Lords, expressly or impliedly, found that the
applicants detention under Part 4 of the 2001 Act did not fall within the
exception to the general right of liberty set out in Article 5 1 (f) of the
Convention (see Lord Bingham, at paragraphs 8-9; Lord Hoffman, at
paragraph 97; Lord Hope, at paragraphs 103-05; Lord Scott, at paragraph
155; Lord Rodger, at paragraph 163; Baroness Hale, at paragraph 222).
Lord Bingham summarised the position in this way:
9. ... A person who commits a serious crime under the criminal law of this country
may of course, whether a national or a non-national, be charged, tried and, if
convicted, imprisoned. But a non-national who faces the prospect of torture or
inhuman treatment if returned to his own country, and who cannot be deported to any
third country, and is not charged with any crime, may not under Article 5 1 (f) of the
Convention and Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 be detained here even if
judged to be a threat to national security.
18. The House of Lords further held, by eight to one (Lords Bingham
and Scott with considerable hesitation), that SIACs conclusion that there
was a public emergency threatening the life of the nation should not be
displaced. Lord Hope assessed the evidence as follows:
118. There is ample evidence within [the open] material to show that the
government were fully justified in taking the view in November 2001 that there was
an emergency threatening the life of the nation. ... [The] United Kingdom was at
danger of attacks from the al-Qaeda network which had the capacity through its
associates to inflict massive casualties and have a devastating effect on the
functioning of the nation. This had been demonstrated by the events of 11 September
2001 in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. There was a significant body of
foreign nationals in the United Kingdom who had the will and the capability of
mounting coordinated attacks here which would be just as destructive to human life
and to property. There was ample intelligence to show that international terrorist
organisations involved in recent attacks and in preparation for other attacks of
terrorism had links with the United Kingdom, and that they and others posed a
continuing threat to this country. There was a growing body of evidence showing
preparations made for the use of weapons of mass destruction in this campaign. ... [It]
was considered [by the Home Office] that the serious threats to the nation emanated
predominantly, albeit not exclusively, and more immediately from the category of
foreign nationals.
119. The picture which emerges clearly from these statements is of a current state
of emergency. It is an emergency which is constituted by the threat that these attacks
will be carried out. It threatens the life of the nation because of the appalling
consequences that would affect us all if they were to occur here. But it cannot yet be
said that these attacks are imminent. On 15 October 2001 the Secretary of State said in
the House of Commons that there was no immediate intelligence pointing to a specific
threat to the United Kingdom: see Hansard (HC Debates, col 925). On 5 March 2002
this assessment of the position was repeated in the governments response to the
Second Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence on the Threat
from Terrorism (HC 348, para 13) where it was stated that it would be wrong to say
that there was evidence of a particular threat. I would not conclude from the material
which we have seen that there was no current emergency. But I would conclude that
the emergency which the threats constitute is of a different kind, or on a different
level, from that which would undoubtedly ensue if the threats were ever to
materialise. The evidence indicates that the latter emergency cannot yet be said to be
imminent. It has to be recognised that, as the attacks are likely to come without
warning, it may not be possible to identify a stage when they can be said to be
imminent. This is an important factor, and I do not leave it out of account. But the fact
is that the stage when the nation has to face that kind of emergency, the emergency of
imminent attack, has not been reached.
Lord Hoffman, who dissented, accepted that there was credible evidence
of a threat of serious terrorist attack within the United Kingdom, but
considered that it would not destroy the life of the nation, since the threat
was not so fundamental as to threaten our institutions of government or our
existence as a civil community. He concluded that the real threat to the
life of the nation ... comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.
19. The other Law Lords (Lords Bingham, Nicholls, Hope, Scott,
Rodger, Carswell and Baroness Hale, with Lord Walker dissenting) rejected
the Governments submission that it was for Parliament and the executive,
10
rather than the courts, to judge the response necessary to protect the security
of the public. Lord Bingham expressed his view as follows:
42. It follows from this analysis that the appellants are in my opinion entitled to
invite the courts to review, on proportionality grounds, the derogation order and the
compatibility with the Convention of section 23 [of the 2001 Act] and the courts are
not effectively precluded by any doctrine of deference from scrutinising the issues
raised. It also follows that I do not accept the full breadth of the Attorney-Generals
submissions. I do not in particular accept the distinction which he drew between
democratic institutions and the courts. It is of course true that the judges in this
country are not elected and are not answerable to Parliament. It is also of course true
... that Parliament, the executive and the courts have different functions. But the
function of independent judges charged to interpret and apply the law is universally
recognised as a cardinal feature of the modern democratic State, a cornerstone of the
rule of law itself. The Attorney-General is fully entitled to insist on the proper limits
of judicial authority, but he is wrong to stigmatise judicial decision-making as in some
way undemocratic. It is particularly inappropriate in a case such as the present in
which Parliament has expressly legislated in section 6 of the 1998 Act to render
unlawful any act of a public authority, including a court, incompatible with a
Convention right; has required courts (in section 2) to take account of relevant
Strasbourg jurisprudence; has (in section 3) required courts, so far as possible, to give
effect to Convention rights and has conferred a right of appeal on derogation issues.
The effect is not, of course, to override the sovereign legislative authority of the
Queen in Parliament, since if primary legislation is declared to be incompatible the
validity of the legislation is unaffected (section 4(6)) and the remedy lies with the
appropriate minister (section 10), who is answerable to Parliament. The 1998 Act
gives the courts a very specific, wholly democratic, mandate.
20. The majority therefore examined whether the detention regime under
Part 4 of the 2001 Act was a proportionate response to the emergency
situation, and concluded that it did not rationally address the threat to
security and was a disproportionate response to that threat. They relied on
three principal grounds: firstly, that the detention scheme applied only to
non-nationals suspected of international terrorism and did not address the
threat which came from United Kingdom nationals who were also so
suspected; secondly, that it left suspected international terrorists at liberty to
leave the United Kingdom and continue their threatening activities abroad;
thirdly, that the legislation was drafted too broadly, so that it could, in
principle, apply to individuals suspected of involvement with international
terrorist organisations which did not fall within the scope of the derogation.
On the first point, Lord Bingham emphasised that SIACs finding that
the terrorist threat was not confined to non-nationals had not been
challenged. Since SIAC was the responsible fact-finding tribunal, it was
unnecessary to examine the basis for its finding, but there was evidence that
upwards of a thousand individuals from the UK are estimated on the basis
of intelligence to have attended training camps in Afghanistan in the last
five years; that some British citizens were said to have planned to return
from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom; and that the background material
relating to the applicants showed the high level of involvement of British
11
citizens and those otherwise connected with the United Kingdom in the
terrorist networks. Lord Bingham continued:
33. ... It is plain that sections 21 and 23 of the 2001 Act do not address the threat
presented by UK nationals since they do not provide for the certification and detention
of UK nationals. It is beside the point that other sections of the 2001 Act and the 2000
Act do apply to UK nationals, since they are not the subject of derogation, are not the
subject of complaint and apply equally to foreign nationals. Yet the threat from UK
nationals, if quantitatively smaller, is not said to be qualitatively different from that
from foreign nationals. It is also plain that sections 21 and 23 do permit a person
certified and detained to leave the United Kingdom and go to any other country
willing to receive him, as two of the appellants did when they left for Morocco and
France respectively ... Such freedom to leave is wholly explicable in terms of
immigration control: if the British authorities wish to deport a foreign national but
cannot deport him to country A because of Chahal their purpose is as well served by
his voluntary departure for country B. But allowing a suspected international
terrorist to leave our shores and depart to another country, perhaps a country as close
as France, there to pursue his criminal designs, is hard to reconcile with a belief in his
capacity to inflict serious injury to the people and interests of this country. ...
...
35. The fifth step in the appellants argument permits of little elaboration. But it
seems reasonable to assume that those suspected international terrorists who are UK
nationals are not simply ignored by the authorities. When [the fifth applicant] was
released from prison by SIAC on bail ... it was on condition (among other things) that
he wear an electronic monitoring tag at all times; that he remain at his premises at all
times; that he telephone a named security company five times each day at specified
times; that he permit the company to install monitoring equipment at his premises;
that he limit entry to his premises to his family, his solicitor, his medical attendants
and other approved persons; that he make no contact with any other person; that he
have on his premises no computer equipment, mobile telephone or other electronic
communications device; that he cancel the existing telephone link to his premises; and
that he install a dedicated telephone link permitting contact only with the security
company. The appellants suggested that conditions of this kind, strictly enforced,
would effectively inhibit terrorist activity. It is hard to see why this would not be so.
36. In urging the fundamental importance of the right to personal freedom, as the
sixth step in their proportionality argument, the appellants were able to draw on the
long libertarian tradition of English law, dating back to Chapter 39 of Magna
Carta 1215, given effect in the ancient remedy of habeas corpus, declared in the
Petition of Right 1628, upheld in a series of landmark decisions down the centuries
and embodied in the substance and procedure of the law to our own day. ... In its
treatment of Article 5 of the European Convention, the European Court also has
recognised the prime importance of personal freedom. ...
...
43. The appellants proportionality challenge to the order and section 23 is, in my
opinion, sound, for all the reasons they gave and also for those given by the European
Commissioner for Human Rights and the Newton Committee. The Attorney-General
could give no persuasive answer.
21. In addition, the majority held that the 2001 Act was discriminatory
and inconsistent with Article 14 of the Convention, from which there had
12
been no derogation. The applicants were in a comparable situation to United

Kingdom nationals suspected of being international terrorists, with whom
they shared the characteristics of being irremovable from the United
Kingdom and being considered a threat to national security. Since the
detention scheme was aimed primarily at the protection of the United
Kingdom from terrorist attack, rather than immigration control, there was no
objective reason to treat the applicants differently on grounds of their
nationality or immigration status.
22. Although the applicants appeal had included complaints under
Articles 3 and 16 of the Convention, the House of Lords did not consider it
necessary to determine these complaints since it had found the derogation to
be unlawful on other grounds.
23. It granted a quashing order in respect of the derogation order, and a
declaration under section 4 of the 1998 Act (see paragraph 94 below) that
section 23 of the 2001 Act was incompatible with Articles 5 1 and 14 of
the Convention in so far as it was disproportionate and permitted
discriminatory detention of suspected international terrorists.
C. The certification proceedings: the generic judgment and
appeals
24. Meanwhile, SIACs hearing of the applicants individual appeals
against certification commenced in May 2003, after the Court of Appeal had
given judgment in the derogation proceedings but before the above
judgment of the House of Lords.
25. For the purposes of each appeal to SIAC, the Secretary of State filed
an open statement summarising the facts connected to the decision to
certify each applicant and as much of the supporting evidence which the
Secretary of State considered could be disclosed without giving rise to any
risk to national security. A further, closed statement of facts and evidence
was also placed before SIAC in each case.
26. On 29 October 2003 SIAC issued a generic judgment in which it
made a number of findings of general application to all the appeals against
certification.
As regards preliminary issues, it found, inter alia, that it had jurisdiction
to hear an appeal against certification even where the person certified had
left the United Kingdom and the certificate had been revoked. It held that
the tests whether reasonable grounds existed for suspicion that a person was
a terrorist and for belief that his presence in the United Kingdom was a
risk to national security, within the meaning of section 21 of the 2001 Act,
fell some way short of proof even on the balance of probabilities. It
further held that reasonable grounds could be based on material which
would not be admissible in a normal trial in court, such as hearsay evidence
of an unidentified informant. The weight that was to be attached to any
13
particular piece of evidence was a matter for consideration in the light of all
the evidence viewed as a whole. Information which might have been
obtained by torture should not automatically be excluded, but the court
should have regard to any evidence about the manner in which it was
obtained and judge its weight and reliability accordingly.
SIAC held that the detention provisions in the 2001 Act should be
interpreted in the light of the terms of the derogation. The threat to the life
of the nation was not confined to activities within the United Kingdom,
because the nations life included its diplomatic, cultural and tourismrelated activities abroad. Moreover, attacks on the United Kingdoms allies
could also create a risk to the United Kingdom, given the interdependence
of countries facing a global terrorist threat. The derogation identified the
threat as emanating from al-Qaeda and its associates. It was therefore
necessary, in respect of both the national security and the international
terrorist limbs of section 21 of the 2001 Act, to show reasonable grounds
for suspicion that the person certified was part of a group which was
connected, directly or indirectly, to al-Qaeda. Even if the main focus of the
group in question was a national struggle, if it backed al-Qaeda for a part of
its agenda and the individual nonetheless supported the group, it was a
legitimate inference that he was supporting and assisting al-Qaeda.
SIAC also made a number of findings of fact of general application
concerning organisations alleged by the Secretary of State to be linked to
al-Qaeda. These findings were based on both open and closed material.
Thus, it held, for example, that the Salafist Group for Call and Combat
(GSPC), which was formed in Algeria in 1998, was an international terrorist
organisation linked to al-Qaeda through training and funding, but that the
earlier Algerian organisation, Armed Islamic Group (GIA), was not. The
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) was either part of al-Qaeda or very closely
linked to it. The Chechen Arab Mujahaddin was an international terrorist
group, pursuing an anti-West agenda beyond the struggle for Chechen
independence, with close links to al-Qaeda. SIAC also identified as falling
within the terms of the derogation a group of primarily Algerian extremists
centred around Abu Doha, an Algerian who had lived in the United
Kingdom from about 1999. It was alleged that Abu Doha had held a senior
role in training camps in Afghanistan and had many contacts in al-Qaeda,
including a connection with the Frankfurt cell which had been accused of
plotting to bomb the Strasbourg Christmas Market in December 2000. Abu
Doha was arrested in February 2001, following an extradition request from
the United States of America, but his group remained active.
27. The applicants appealed against SIACs ruling that evidence which
might have been obtained by torture was admissible. For the purposes of the
appeal, the parties agreed that the proceedings before SIAC to challenge
certification fell within Article 5 4 of the Convention and as such had to
14
satisfy the basic requirements of a fair trial. It was not, therefore, necessary
to decide whether Article 6 also applied and the issue was left open.
On 11 August 2004 the Court of Appeal, by a majority, upheld SIACs
decision ([2004] EWCA Civ 1123).
On 8 December 2005 the House of Lords held unanimously that the
evidence of a suspect or witness which had been obtained by torture had
long been regarded as inherently unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary
standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles on
which courts should administer justice. It followed that such evidence might
not lawfully be admitted against a party to proceedings in a United
Kingdom court, irrespective of where, by whom and on whose authority the
torture had been inflicted. Since the person challenging certification had
only limited access to the material advanced against him in the proceedings
before SIAC, he could not be expected to do more than raise a plausible
reason that material might have been so obtained and it was then for SIAC
to initiate the relevant enquiries. The House of Lords therefore allowed the
applicants appeals and remitted each case to SIAC for reconsideration
([2005] UKHL 71).
28. SIACs conclusions as regards each applicants case are set out in
paragraphs 29-69 below. Of the sixteen individuals, including the eleven
applicants, detained under Part 4 of the 2001 Act, one had his certificate
cancelled by SIAC.
D. The certification proceedings: the individual determinations
1. The first applicant
29. The first applicant was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan,
is stateless, and was granted indefinite leave to remain in the United
Kingdom in 1997. On 17 December 2001 the first applicant was certified by
the Secretary of State as a suspected international terrorist under section 21
of the 2001 Act. On 18 December 2001 a deportation order was made on the
same grounds.
30. The first applicant was taken into detention on 19 December 2001.
He subsequently appealed to SIAC against certification and the decision to
make a deportation order. On 24 July 2002 he was transferred to Broadmoor
Secure Mental Hospital.
31. The first applicant and his representatives were served with the
Secretary of States open material, including a police report which
showed that large sums of money had moved through the four bank
accounts in his name. SIAC and the special advocate instructed on behalf of
the first applicant were in addition presented with closed evidence.
Assisted by an interpreter, the first applicant gave oral evidence to SIAC
and called one witness to testify to his good character. He also filed four
15
medical reports concerning his mental health. SIAC observed in its

judgment of 29 October 2003:
We are acutely aware that the open material relied on against the Applicant is very
general and that the case depends in the main upon assertions which are largely
unsupported. The central allegation is that he has been involved in fund-raising and
distribution of those funds for terrorist groups with links to al-Qaeda. It is also said
that he has procured false documents and helped facilitate the movement of jihad
volunteers to training camps in Afghanistan. He is said to be closely involved with
senior extremists and associates of Osama Bin Laden both in the United Kingdom and
overseas. His case is and always has been that he is concerned and concerned only
with welfare projects, in particular a school in Afghanistan for the children of Arab
speakers there and projects such as construction of wells and provision of food to
communities in Afghanistan. He has also raised money for refugees from Chechnya.
Any contact with so-called extremists has been in that context and he had no reason to
believe they were terrorists or were interested in terrorism.
We recognise the real difficulties that the Appellant has in making this appeal. We
have made appropriate allowance for those difficulties and his mental problems. We
note [his counsels] concerns that there has been gross oversimplification by the
Security Service of the situation which is, he submits, highly complex and a tendency
to assume that any devout Muslim who believed that the way of life practised by the
Taliban in Afghanistan was the true way to follow must be suspect. We note, too, that
initially the Respondent asserted that all the Appellants fund-raising activities were
for the purpose of assisting terrorism and that it was only when evidence was
produced by the Appellant to show that there were legitimate charitable objectives
that he accepted that at least some money was raised for those purposes. In so far as
connections with named individuals are relied on, we bear in mind that some of them,
who are alleged to be involved in terrorism, have appeals pending ... and that
allegations against others have not been tested nor have alleged links been able to be
explained.
...
[The first applicants counsel] accepted, as he had to, the unreliability of the
Applicants evidence about his movements in the 1990s, but asked us not to hold it
against him because of his mental state. We do not accept that we can do that. The lies
were a deliberate attempt to rebut the allegation that he had been a mujahid in
Afghanistan, saying that he spent three years in a Jordanian prison. There was an
overstatement by the police of the amount involved through the bank account. This we
accept, but there was still a substantial sum of money going through them. And [the
applicants counsel] submitted that the allegation was that he had provided false
documents for others not for himself. Thus his false Iraq passport was not material. It
does however show an ability to obtain a false passport. [The applicants counsel]
attacked the reliability of the intelligence relied on against the Appellant since it was
only belatedly accepted that he had been involved in genuine charitable work and that
some of the money going through his account and raised by him was for such a
purpose. We recognise the danger that all activities by one who is under suspicion
may be regarded as themselves suspicious and that there may not be a fair
consideration of all material to see whether it truly does support the suspicion. We
have considered all the material, in particular that which is closed, with that danger in
mind.
As we have said, the open evidence taken in isolation cannot provide the reasons
why we are dismissing this appeal and we sympathise with [the first applicants
16
counsels] concerns that he had a most difficult task. We were not impressed with the
Appellant as a witness, even making all allowances for his mental state and the
difficulties under which he was labouring. He was often evasive and vague and has
admittedly told lies in relation to his movements in the 1990s. His explanations about
some of the transactions recorded in his bank accounts we have found difficult to
follow or accept. We should say that we do not consider that the Respondents case is
significantly advanced by what has been said about the Appellants involvement with
Algeria or Chechnya; the case depends essentially on the evidence about the
Appellants dealings with Afghanistan and with terrorists known to have links with alQaeda.
It is clear that the Appellant was a very successful fund-raiser and, more
importantly, that he was able to get the money to Afghanistan. Whatever his
problems, he was able to and was relied on to provide an efficient service. His
explanations both of who were the well known terrorists whose children were at the
school and of the various of the more substantial payments shown in the bank
accounts are unsatisfactory. He was vague where, having regard to the allegations
made against him, we would have expected some detail.
...
We have considered all the evidence critically. The closed material confirms our
view that the certification in this case was correct. There is both a reasonable belief
that the Appellants presence in the United Kingdom is a risk to national security and
a reasonable suspicion that he is a terrorist within the meaning of section 21 of the
2001 Act. This appeal is accordingly dismissed.
32. In accordance with the terms of the 2001 Act, the first applicants
case was reviewed by SIAC six months later. In its judgment of 2 July
2004, SIAC found that:
The updated open generic material ... continues to show that there is a direct
terrorist threat to the United Kingdom from a group or groups of largely North
African Islamic extremists, linked in various ways to al-Qaeda.
Although some of his contacts have been detained, the range of extremists
prominent in various groups was such that he would have no difficulty and retains the
will and ability to add his considerable experience of logistic support to them in
pursuit of the extremist Islamic agenda in the UK. The certificate is properly
maintained.
33. SIAC reviewed the case again on 15 December 2004 and again
found that the certificate should be maintained.
2. The second applicant
34. The second applicant is a citizen of Morocco born on 28 February
1963. He entered the United Kingdom as a visitor in 1985 and was granted
leave to remain as a student. On 21 June 1988 he was granted indefinite
leave to remain on the basis of his marriage to a British citizen, which
subsequently broke down. In 1990 and again in 1997 he applied for
naturalisation, but no decision was made on those applications. In 2000 he
remarried another British citizen, with whom he has a child.
17
35. On 17 December 2001 the second applicant was certified by the

Secretary of State as a suspected international terrorist under section 21 of
the 2001 Act. A deportation order was made on the same date. The second
applicant was taken into detention on 19 December 2001. He appealed
against the certification and deportation order but, nonetheless, elected to
leave the United Kingdom for Morocco on 22 December 2001. He pursued
his appeals from Morocco.
36. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, SIAC summarised the open
case against the second applicant as follows:
...
(1) he has links with both the GIA and the GSPC [Algerian terrorist groups: see
paragraph 26 above] and is a close associate of a number of Islamic extremists with
links to al-Qaeda and/or Bin Laden.
(2) he has been concerned in the preparation and/or instigation of acts of
international terrorism by procuring high-tech equipment (including communications
equipment) for the GSPC and/or Islamic extremists in Chechnya led by Ibn Khattab
and has also procured clothing for the latter group.
(3) he has supported one or more of the GIA, the GSPC and the Ibn Khattab faction
in Chechnya by his involvement in fraud perpetrated to facilitate the funding of
extremists and storing and handling of propaganda videos promoting the jihad.
9. The Secretary of States open case expands on those allegations and further
indicates the use of at least one alias and a pattern of association with individuals
known or assessed to be involved in terrorism [five individuals were identified]. All
these were described by [counsel for the Secretary of State] as known Algerian
Islamic extremists.
10. Witness B [for the Secretary of State] confirmed that the allegation against [the
second applicant] is that he is a member of a network, rather than a member of any
particular organisation such as the GSPC or the GIA.
SIAC continued by explaining the findings it had made against the

applicant:
Like the other Appellants, [the second applicant] is not charged in these
proceedings with a series of individual offences. The issue is whether, taking the
evidence as a whole, it is reasonable to suspect him of being an international terrorist
(as defined). When we look at the material before us, as we do, we treat it
cumulatively. It might be that the material relating to fraud alone, or to clothing alone,
or to videos alone, or to associations, would not by itself show that a person was in
any way involved in terrorism or its support. But we need to assess the situation when
various factors are found combined in the same person. Those factors are as follows.
First is his involvement in acts of fraud, of which he must be aware but of which he
seeks to provide no explanation, excusing himself apparently on the ground that he is
not aware which particular act or acts the Secretary of State has in mind. Secondly, he
has been involved in raising consciousness (and hence in raising money) about the
struggle in Chechnya, and has been doing so in a specifically Islamic (rather than a
merely humanitarian) context, using and distributing films which, according to the
evidence before us, tend to be found in extremist communities. In the generic
evidence, we have dealt with the Chechen Arab Mujahaddin and the significance of
support for it which we accepted is given in full knowledge of its wider jihadist
18
agenda. ... [He] has done so as a close associate of Abu Doha. Given the information
we have about Abu Doha which, as we have said, we have no reason to doubt, we
regard [the second applicants] claim that Abu Doha was doing nothing illegal (save
that he was hiding his activities from the Russians) as entirely implausible. ... [He] has
had associations with a number of other individuals involved in terrorism. They are
for the most part specified by name in the open case but are not mentioned in his own
statement. ...
These are the five features which meet in [the second applicant]. No doubt the
Secretary of State could have made his case by demonstrating various combinations of
them in a single person. With all five, we regard the case as compelling. We are
entirely satisfied that the Secretary of State is reasonable in his suspicion that [the
second applicant] supports or assists the GIA, the GSPC, and the looser group based
around Abu Doha, and in his belief that at any time [the second applicant] is in the
United Kingdom his presence here is a risk to national security.
3. The third applicant

37. The third applicant is of Tunisian nationality, born in 1963 and
resident in the United Kingdom from about 1994. He was certified by the
Secretary of State on 18 December 2001 and detained the following day.
38. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, dismissing the third applicants
appeal against certification, SIAC observed:
The case against the Appellant, as framed in the open material, is that he is a key
member of an extreme Islamist group known as the Tunisia Fighting Group (TFG). It
is said that this group was formed during 2000 and had its origins in the Tunisian
Islamic Front (known as the FIT since the name is in French). Its ultimate aim is said
to be to establish an Islamic State in Tunisia. It is further asserted that the Appellant
has been in regular contact with a number of known extremists including some who
have been involved in terrorist activities or planning. Both the FIT and the TFG are
said to have links with al-Qaeda.
The open material deployed against the Appellant is not at all substantial. The
evidence which is relied on against him is largely to be found in the closed material.
This has meant that he has been at a real disadvantage in dealing with the case
because he is not aware of those with whom he is alleged to have been in contact.
...
In his statement the Appellant says that he has never heard of the TFG and is
certainly not a member of it. ... We have no doubts that the TFG exists ... [and] also
that it has links to al-Qaeda. Our reasons for so concluding must be given in the
closed judgment.
In May 1998 the Appellant and some ten others were arrested in a joint Special
Branch and Security Service operation pursuant to warrants under the Prevention of
Terrorism Act. The Appellant was released without charge and in due course received
18,500 compensation for wrongful arrest. The arrests were in connection with
allegations of involvement in a plot to target the World Cup in France. We of course
give weight to the absence of any admissible evidence to support the Appellants
involvement in the alleged conspiracy, but it is not and cannot be the answer to this
appeal. We have to consider all the material to see whether there are reasonable
grounds for a belief or suspicion of the kind referred to in section 21(a) or (b) of the
2001 Act.
19
...
We are satisfied that the Appellant is a member of the TFG, itself an international
terrorist organisation within the scope of the 2001 Act, and that he has links with an
international terrorist group. We appreciate that our open reasons for being so
satisfied are sparse. That is because the material which drives us to that conclusion is
mainly closed. We have considered it carefully and in the context of knowing the
Appellant denies any involvement in terrorism or any knowing support for or
assistance to terrorists. We have therefore been careful only to rely on material which
cannot in our judgment have an innocent explanation.
39. SIAC reached similar conclusions in its periodic reviews of the case
on 2 July and on 15 December 2004.
4. The fourth applicant
40. The fourth applicant was born in Algeria in 1971 and first entered
the United Kingdom in 1994. In May 1997 he was arrested and charged
with a number of offences, including a conspiracy to export to Algeria
material which it was alleged was to be used for the purposes of terrorism. It
was alleged that he was a member of GIA. The case against the applicant
was abandoned in March 2000 when a key witness, a Security Service
agent, who was to give evidence concerning the need for civilians to defend
themselves against atrocities allegedly committed by the Algerian
government, decided that it was too dangerous for him to give evidence.
41. In 1998 the fourth applicant married a French national. He became a
French citizen in May 2001, although he did not inform the United
Kingdom authorities of this. The Secretary of State certified him under
section 21 of the 2001 Act on 17 December 2001 and he was detained on
19 December 2001. On 13 March 2002 he left for France, where he was
interviewed on arrival by security officials and then set at liberty. Since he
had left the United Kingdom, the certificate against him was revoked and
the revocation was backdated to 22 March 2002.
42. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, SIAC held that the backdating
of the revocation meant that the fourth applicant could not be regarded as
having been certified at the time he lodged his appeal and that, therefore, he
had no right of appeal. It nonetheless decided to consider the appeal on the
basis that this conclusion might be wrong. Since the Secretary of State could
not reasonably have known at the time the certificate was issued that the
applicant was a French citizen and could safely be removed to France, it
could not be said on that ground that the certificate should not have been
issued. SIAC therefore continued by assessing the evidence against him:
In reaching our decision, we will have to consider not only the open but also the
closed material. The Appellant appears to have suspected that he was the subject of
surveillance over much of the relevant period.
We are conscious of the need to be very careful not to assume guilt from
association. There must be more than friendship or consorting with those who are
20
believed to be involved in international terrorism to justify a reasonable suspicion that

the Appellant is himself involved in those activities or is at least knowingly
supporting or assisting them. We bear in mind [his solicitors] concerns that what has
happened here is an attempt to resurrect the prosecution with nothing to add from his
activities since. Detention must be regarded as a last resort and so cannot be justified
on the basis of association alone and in any event the guilt of the associates has never
been established. ...
Nonetheless, continued association with those who are suspected of being involved
in international terrorism with links to al-Qaeda in the light of the reasonable
suspicion that the Appellant was himself actively involved in terrorist activities for the
GIA is a matter which can properly be taken into account. The GSPC, which broke
away from the GIA, has links to al-Qaeda and the Appellant has continued to
associate with those who took to the GSPC rather than the GIA. We are in fact
satisfied that not only was the Appellant actively involved initially with the GIA and
then with the GSPC but also that he provided false documentation for their members
and for the Mujahaddin in Chechnya as is alleged in the open statement. But we
accept that his activities in 2000 and 2001 justify the use of the expression that he had
been maintaining a low profile, and we make that observation having regard to both
open and closed material. Nonetheless, a low profile does not mean that he is not
properly to be regarded as an international terrorist within the meaning of section 21.
An assessment has to be made of what he may do in the light of what he has done and
the fact that he has shown willingness and the ability to give assistance and support in
the past and continues the associations and to provide some help (e.g. the use of his
van) is highly relevant.
We have not found this aspect of the Appellants case at all easy. We have given full
weight to all [his solicitors] submissions which were so persuasively put before us
but in the end have reached the view that, looking at the evidence as a whole, the
decision to issue a certificate was not wrong. Accordingly, we would not have
allowed the appeal on the facts.
5. The fifth applicant

43. The fifth applicant was born in Algeria in 1969. In his statement to
SIAC he claimed to have developed polio as a child which left him with a
permanently weak and paralysed right leg. He was arrested and tortured by
the Algerian government in 1991, whereupon he left Algeria for Saudi
Arabia. In 1992 he moved to Pakistan and travelled to Afghanistan on
several occasions. In August 1995 he entered the United Kingdom and
claimed asylum, alleging in the course of that claim that his leg had been
injured by a shell in Afghanistan in 1994. His asylum claim was refused and
his appeal against the refusal was dismissed in December 1999. The
applicant married a French citizen and had a child with her.
44. He was certified by the Secretary of State under section 21 of the
2001 Act on 17 December 2001 and detained on 19 December 2001. In its
judgment of 29 October 2003, dismissing the fifth applicants appeal against
certification, SIAC observed:
The open statements provided to justify the certification do not refer to a great deal
of source material and so consist mainly of assertions. As with most of these appeals,
the main part of the evidence lies in closed material and so, as we are well aware, the
21
Appellants have been at a disadvantage in that they have not been able to deal with
what might be taken to be incriminating evidence. The Special Advocates have been
able to challenge certain matters and sometimes to good effect. That indeed was the
case in relation to a camp in Dorset attended by a number of those, including the
Appellant, of interest to the Security Service. ...
The case against the Appellant is that he was a member of the GIA and, since its
split from the GIA, of the GSPC. He is associated with a number of leading
extremists, some of whom are also members of or associated with the GSPC, and has
provided active support in the form of the supply of false documents and facilitating
young Muslims from the United Kingdom to travel to Afghanistan to train for jihad.
He is regarded as having undertaken an important role in the support activities
undertaken on behalf of the GSPC and other Islamic extremists in the United
Kingdom and outside it. All this the Appellant denies and in his statement he gives
innocent explanations for the associations alleged against him. He was indeed friendly
with in particular other Algerians in the United Kingdom and, so far as [the fourth
applicant] was concerned, the families were close because, apart from anything else,
their respective wives were French. He attended [the eighth applicants] mosque. He
was an impressive preacher and the Appellant says he listened but was never
involved. Indeed he did not know [the eighth applicant] except through Chechen
relief, which the Appellant and many hundreds of other Muslims supported, and he
had never spoken to him on the telephone. He had on occasions approached [the
eighth applicant] at Friday prayers at the mosque if he wanted guidance on some
social problem.
SIAC referred to open surveillance reports which showed the applicant

to have been in contact with other alleged members of GIA and GSPC,
including at a camp in Dorset in July 1999. Further open evidence
concerned his unhelpful and not altogether truthful responses to
questioning by officers of the Security Service in July and September 2001.
SIAC continued:
Reliance is placed on various articles found in his house when he was arrested.
These include a copy of the fatwa issued by Bin Laden. The Appellant says he had
never seen it and could not explain its presence. A GSPC communiqu was, he says,
probably one handed out at the mosque. Analysis of the hard drive of his computer
showed it had visited an Internet site that specialised in United States military
technology. This was not something which could be relevant to the Appellants
studies. And a hand-drawn diagram of a missile rocket he has not seen before. It
might, he thinks, have been in a book about Islam he had bought second hand from
the mosque.
We note the denials, but we have to consider all the evidence. As will be clear from
this judgment, we have reason to doubt some of the Appellants assertions. But the
closed material confirms our view that there is indeed reasonable suspicion that the
Appellant is an international terrorist within the meaning of section 21 and reasonable
belief that his presence in the United Kingdom is a risk to national security. We have
no doubt that he has been involved in the production of false documentation, has
facilitated young Muslims to travel to Afghanistan to train for jihad and has actively
assisted terrorists who have links with al-Qaeda. We are satisfied too that he has
actively assisted the GSPC. We have no hesitation in dismissing his appeal.
45. On 22 April 2004, because of concerns about his health, the fifth
applicant was released from prison on bail on strict conditions, which
22
amounted to house arrest with further controls. In its review judgment of

2 July 2004, SIAC held:
... in granting bail, [SIAC] did not revise its view as to the strength of the grounds
for believing he was an international terrorist and a threat to national security. The
threat could be managed proportionately in his case in view of his severe mental
illness. That however is no reason to cancel the certificate. There might be
circumstances in which he breaches the terms of his bail or for other reasons it was
necessary to revoke it. The need for the certificate to continue must depend on
whether the terms of the statute and of the derogation continue to be met.
A number of his contacts remain at large including some who are regarded as
actively involved in terrorist planning. There is nothing to suggest that his mental
illness has diminished his commitment to the extremist Islamic cause; he has the
experience and capacity to involve himself once more in extremist activity. The bail
restraints on him are essential; those are imposed pursuant to his certification and the
SIAC dismissal of his appeal against it. The certificate is properly maintained.
46. On 15 December 2004, SIAC again reviewed the case and decided
that the certificate should be maintained.
6. The sixth applicant
47. The sixth applicant was born in Algeria in 1967 and was resident in
the United Kingdom from 1989. The Secretary of State issued a certificate
against him on 17 December 2001 and he was taken into detention on
19 December 2001.
48. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, SIAC observed as follows:
Although we have to make our decision on the basis both of the open and of the
closed material, it is important to indicate the case against [the sixth applicant] as it
has been set out by the Secretary of State in open material, because that is the case
that [the sixth applicant] knows that he has to meet. In assessing his statement and the
other evidence and arguments submitted on his behalf, we remind ourselves always
that he is not aware of the Secretary of States closed material, but nevertheless that he
is not operating entirely in a vacuum because of the open allegations; and we may test
the Appellants own case by the way he deals with those allegations.
The Secretary of States case against [the sixth applicant] is summarised as follows:
(1) he belongs to and/or is a member of the GSPC, and previously was involved
with the GIA;
(2) he has supported and assisted the GSPC (and previously the GIA) through his
involvement in credit card fraud which is a main source of income in the United
Kingdom for the GSPC;
(3) from about August 2000, [the sixth applicant] took on an important role in
procuring telecommunications equipment for the GSPC and the provision of logistical
support for satellite phones by way of purchase and allocation of airtimes for those
phones;
(4) he has also played an important part in procuring telecommunications
equipment and other equipment for the Mujahaddin fighting in Chechnya that is to
say the faction which until 2002 was under the command of Ibn Khattab.
23
SIAC then reviewed the open evidence before it regarding the purchase
by Abu Doha, assisted by the sixth and seventh applicants, of a number of
satellite telephones and other telecommunications equipment to the value of
229,265 pounds sterling and the nature and extent of the connection
between the sixth and seventh applicants. It concluded:
In the circumstances we have set out, it appears to us that the Secretary of State has
ample ground for suspicion that [the sixth applicants] procurement activities were
directed to the support of the extremist Arab Islamist faction fighting in Chechnya.
That support arises from [the sixth applicants] connections with and support of the
GSPC. We emphasise, as is the case with other appeals as well, that it is the
accumulation of factors, each lending support to the others rather than undermining
other points, providing colour and context for the activities seen as a whole which is
persuasive; it would be wrong to take a piece in isolation, thereby to diminish its
significance and to miss the larger picture. The generic judgment supports these
conclusions. These are activities falling centrally within the derogation. [The sixth
applicant] has provided only implausible denials and has failed to offer credible
alternative explanations. That is sufficient to determine his appeal, without making
any further reference to the Secretary of States other allegations which, as was
acknowledged in the open statement and in open evidence before [SIAC], can be
properly sustained only by examination of the closed material.
49. SIAC reviewed the case on 2 July 2004 and on 28 February 2005
and, on each occasion, decided that there were still grounds for maintaining
the certificate.
7. The seventh applicant
50. The seventh applicant was born in Algeria in 1971 and apparently
entered the United Kingdom using false French identity papers in or before
1994. On 7 December 2001 he was convicted of a number of driving
offences and sentenced to four months imprisonment. He was certified by
the Secretary of State on 5 February 2002 and taken into detention pursuant
to the certificate as soon as his prison sentence ended on 9 February 2002.
51. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, SIAC noted that the allegations
against the seventh applicant were that he had been a member of GSPC
since 1997 or 1998, and before that a member of GIA; that his contacts with
leading GSPC members in the United Kingdom showed that he was a
trusted member of the organisation; and that he had been involved with Abu
Doha and the sixth applicant in purchasing telecommunications equipment
for use by extremists in Chechnya and Algeria. It further noted that:
[The seventh applicant] did not give evidence before [SIAC] and, indeed, chose not
to attend the hearing of his appeal. His statement, which we have of course read, is in
the most general terms, and, perhaps not surprisingly, [his counsels] submissions,
both oral and written, were similarly general. [The seventh applicants] approach to
the present proceedings of themselves and the fact that he did not give oral evidence
or make any detailed written statement are not matters to be put in the scale against
him. We well understand the difficulty that Appellants have in circumstances where
the allegations against them are only summarised and where much of the evidence on
24
which those allegations are based cannot, for reasons of national security, be
communicated to the Appellants themselves. However, [the seventh applicant] is in
the best position to know what his activities and motives have been in the relevant
period. Nothing prevents him from giving a full description and account of those
activities if he wishes to do so. The fact that he has chosen to provide no detailed
account of his activities means that he has provided no material to counter the
evidence and arguments of others.
SIAC concluded that the open and closed material supported the
allegations against the seventh applicant and it dismissed his appeal.
52. In its review judgments of 2 July and 15 December 2004, SIAC
decided that the certificate should be maintained.
8. The eighth applicant
53. The eighth applicant is a Jordanian national, born in Bethlehem in
1960. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 16 September 1993 and claimed
asylum. He was recognised as a refugee and granted leave to remain until
30 June 1998. On 8 May 1998 he applied for indefinite leave to remain but
the application had not been determined at the time of the coming into force
of the 2001 Act.
54. The eighth applicant was convicted in absentia in Jordan for his
involvement in terrorist attacks there and in relation to a plot to plant bombs
to coincide with the millennium. He was investigated in February 2001 by
anti-terrorism police officers in connection with a plot to cause explosions
at the Strasbourg Christmas Market in December 2000, but no charges were
brought against him. When the 2001 Act was passed he went into hiding.
He was arrested on 23 October 2002 and was immediately made the subject
of a section 21 certificate and taken into detention. On the same date, a
deportation order was made against him.
55. In its judgment of 8 March 2004, dismissing the eighth applicants
appeal against certification, SIAC observed as follows:
[The eighth applicants counsel], on instructions from the Appellant, informed us
that his client had chosen not to attend the hearing or to participate in any way. He had
read the decisions relating to the Appellants who had been certified when the 2001
Act came into force and the generic judgment and so felt certain that the result of his
appeal was a foregone conclusion. There had been many references to his role in the
other appeals and some had been certified and detained, at least in part, on the basis
that they associated with him. Since that association was regarded as sufficient to
justify their continued detention, he considered that the decision on his appeal had, in
effect, already been taken. He had chosen not to play any part precisely because he
has no faith in the ability of the system to get at the truth. He considered that the SIAC
procedure had deliberately been established to avoid open and public scrutiny of the
respondents case, which deprived individuals of a fair opportunity to challenge the
case against them.
Having said that, [the eighth applicants counsel] made it clear that the appeal was
not being withdrawn. It was accordingly necessary for us to consider it and to take
into account the statement made by the Appellant. [His counsel] emphasised a number
25
of matters which, he suggested, should be regarded as favourable to the Appellants

contention that he was not and never had been involved in terrorism within the
meaning of the 2001 Act. Furthermore, the allegations showed that a distorted and
over-simplified view was being taken by the security services of the Appellants
activities and his role as a respected teacher and believer in the rights of Islamic
communication throughout the world.
We should make it clear that we have considered the case against the Appellant on
its merits. We have not been influenced by any findings made in other appeals or the
generic judgments. One of the reasons why this judgment has taken a long time to be
prepared was the need for us to read through and consider the evidence, both open and
closed, that has been put before us. There is much more of it than in most of the other
appeals. That is a reflection of the fact that the Appellant has been associated with and
had dealings with many of the others who have been certified and with individuals
and groups themselves linked to al-Qaeda. We see no reason to dissent from the views
expressed in the generic judgment of the significance of the various individuals and
groups referred to in it. But that does not mean we have therefore automatically
accepted its views. We draw attention to the fact that the panel which produced the
generic judgment was not the same constitution as this panel and that such input as
there was by the chairman of this panel to the generic judgment was limited to issues
of law. We have considered the case against the Appellant on the material put before
us in this appeal. ...
When it came to the closed session, the Special Advocates informed us that after
careful consideration they had decided that it would not be in the Appellants interests
for them to take any part in the proceedings. We were very concerned at this, taking
the view that the decision was wrong. The appeal was still being pursued and the
Appellant did not know what was relied on against him in the closed material. We
were unable to understand how in the circumstances it could not be in his interests for
the Special Advocates, at their discretion, to elicit or identify matters favourable to the
Appellant and to make submissions to us to seek to persuade us that evidence was in
fact unreliable or did not justify the assessment made. When we asked [one of the two
Special Advocates appointed on behalf of the eighth applicant] to tell us why he had
decided as he had he told us that he could not do so since to do so would not be in the
Appellants interest. We adjourned to enable the Special Advocates to seek to
discover from the Appellant through his representatives whether he did wish them to
do what they could on his behalf and we also contacted the Solicitor-General who had
appointed the Special Advocates to seek her help in trying to persuade them to assist
us. The Appellants representatives indicated that they had nothing to say on the
subject and the Solicitor-General took the view that it would be wrong for her to
intervene in any way. Our further attempts to persuade the Special Advocates to
change their minds were unsuccessful and since we could not compel them to act in
any particular way we had to proceed without them. [Counsel for the Secretary of
State], at our request, identified various matters which might be regarded as possibly
exculpatory and we ourselves raised other matters in the course of the closed hearing.
We are conscious that the absence of a Special Advocate makes our task even more
difficult than it normally is and that the potential unfairness to the Appellant is the
more apparent. We do not doubt that the Special Advocates believed they had good
reasons for adopting the stance that they did and we are equally sure that they thought
long and hard about whether they were doing the right thing. But we are bound to
record our clear view that they were wrong and that there could be no reason for not
continuing to take part in an appeal that was still being pursued. ... As it happens, the
evidence in this case against the Appellant is so strong that no Special Advocates,
26
however brilliant, could have persuaded us that reasonable suspicion had not been
established so that the certification was not justified. Thus the absence of Special
Advocates has not prejudiced the Appellant. ...
56. SIAC then summarised the open case against the applicant, which
was that he had associated with and acted as spiritual adviser to a number of
individuals and groups linked with al-Qaeda. He held extreme and
fundamentalist views and had been reported as having, in his speeches at a
London mosque, given his blessing to the killing of Jews and Americans,
wherever they were. SIAC concluded:
We are satisfied that the Appellants activities went far beyond the mere giving of
advice. He has certainly given the support of the Koran to those who wish to further
the aims of al-Qaeda and to engage in suicide bombing and other murderous activities.
The evidence is sufficient to show that he has been concerned in the instigation of acts
of international terrorism. But spiritual advice given in the knowledge of the purposes
for which and the uses to which it is to be put provides assistance within the meaning
of section 21(4) of the 2001 Act.
...
There are a large number of allegations made. We see no point in dealing with them
seriatim. We have indicated why we have formed the view that the case made against
the Appellant is established. Indeed, were the standard higher than reasonable
suspicion, we would have had no doubt that it was established. The Appellant was
heavily involved, indeed was at the centre in the United Kingdom of terrorist activities
associated with al-Qaeda. He is a truly dangerous individual and these appeals are
dismissed.
9. The ninth applicant

57. The ninth applicant is Algerian, born in 1972. In 1991 he left Algeria
for Afghanistan, where he taught Arabic in a refugee camp. He claimed
asylum in the United Kingdom in 1993. In 1994 he was granted leave to
remain for four years and in 2000 he was granted indefinite leave to remain,
on the basis that he was to be regarded as a refugee. On four occasions, the
last in May 1998, the applicant was arrested and released without charge.
The first three arrests related to credit card fraud. The arrest in May 1998
related to alleged terrorist activities and the applicant was subsequently paid
compensation by the police for false arrest.
58. The ninth applicant was certified by the Secretary of State and made
the subject of a deportation order on 22 April 2002. He was detained on the
same day. According to the evidence of one of the witnesses for the
Secretary of State, he was not certified, with the other applicants, in
December 2001 because one of his files had been lost.
59. In its judgment of 29 October 2003, SIAC noted that the allegations
against the ninth applicant were that he was an active supporter of GSPC
and had raised considerable sums of money for it through fraud. There was
evidence that the applicant had in the past been found, by customs officers,
attempting to enter the United Kingdom by ferry with large amounts of cash
27
and that he had close links with others who had been convicted of credit
card fraud. SIAC held that evidence of involvement in fraud did not
establish involvement in terrorism. However, it noted that the applicant had
been present at a camp in Dorset in the company of the fifth applicant and a
number of others suspected of being GSPC supporters and that a telephone
bill had been found at his house at the time of his arrest in the name of
Yarkas, who had been arrested in Spain in November 2001 due to his
alleged links with al-Qaeda. The applicant had given evidence but had not
been a convincing witness and had not given a credible explanation for the
foregoing. The closed evidence supported the Secretary of States
allegations and SIAC therefore dismissed the applicants appeal against
certification.
60. In its review judgments of 2 July 2004 and 15 December 2004,
SIAC held that the certificate was properly maintained.
10. The tenth applicant
61. The tenth applicant is an Algerian national. Following a bomb
explosion in Algeria, his left hand was amputated at the wrist and his right
arm was amputated below the elbow. In 1999 he travelled to the United
Kingdom, via Abu Dhabi and Afghanistan, and claimed asylum. His claim
was refused on 27 February 2001. He was then in custody, having been
arrested on 15 February 2001 and charged with possession of articles for
suspected terrorist purposes, conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to make
false instruments. At the time of his arrest he was found to have in his
possession approximately forty blank French driving licences, identity cards
and passports, a credit card reader, laminators and an embossing machine.
The charges were not, however, proceeded with and he was released on
17 May 2001.
62. On 14 January 2003 the Secretary of State issued a certificate against
him under section 21 of the 2001 Act and he was taken into detention. A
deportation order was made against him on the same day.
63. In its judgment of 27 January 2004, SIAC noted that the essence of
the case against the tenth applicant was that since his arrival in the United
Kingdom he had been closely associated with a network of extremists
formerly led by Abu Doha (see paragraph 26 above). In particular, it was
alleged that he had provided logistical support in the form of false
documentation and money raised through credit card fraud. He had spent a
lot of time at the Finsbury Park Mosque, a known centre of Islamist
extremism, and was alleged to have attended a meeting there in June 2001 at
which threats were made against the G8 summit in Genoa.
The applicant submitted a written statement on 28 June 2003 in which he
denied the allegations against him. He did not, however, participate in the
hearing of his appeal, as SIAC explained in its judgment:
28
He was, said [his counsel], a genuine refugee, a member of no organisation or

group and not involved in terrorism or in advocating terrorism. He had no knowledge
of any planned terrorist attacks and could not understand why the accusations had
been made against him. He had seen none of the underlying material and had no
means of challenging it. In effect, he could do no more than assert that it could not
justify the conclusion that he was an international terrorist within the meaning of the
Act since he was not. He had had read to him the decisions of [SIAC] in the previous
appeals. Given the relevance which was placed on the closed material and the
statutory test applicable, he felt that the result was a foregone conclusion. He did not
wish in participating in the appeal to give an impression which was false that he could
deal with the matters which were being relied on against him. He had no confidence in
the proceedings. Accordingly he would take no active part in them beyond the
statement which [his counsel] made on his behalf.
He did not withdraw his appeal. While we appreciate the handicap under which he
and indeed all the Appellants labour, we wish to make it clear that no appeal is a
foregone conclusion. We have to and we do consider the evidence put before us,
whether open or closed, with care because we recognise that the result is detention for
an unspecified period without trial. While we recognise that the Special Advocate has
a difficult task when he has and can obtain no instructions on closed material, he is
able to test evidence from the Security Service and to draw our attention to material
which assists the Appellants case.
SIAC found that there was ample evidence to support the view that the
applicant was involved in fraudulent activities. The evidence before it, most
of it closed, was sufficient to establish that he was doing it to raise money
for terrorist causes and to support those involved in terrorism. It therefore
dismissed the appeal against certification.
64. SIAC reached similar decisions in its review judgments of 4 August
2004 and 16 February 2005. In the latter judgment, it noted that although
the applicant had been transferred to Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital
because of mental health problems, that made no difference to the
assessment of the risk to national security which he would pose if released.
11. The eleventh applicant
65. The eleventh applicant is an Algerian national. He entered the
United Kingdom in February 1998, using a false Italian identity card, and
claimed asylum the following week. While his claim was pending, in July
2001, he travelled to Georgia using a false French passport and was
deported back to the United Kingdom, where he was informed that his
travel outside the United Kingdom had terminated his asylum claim. He
made a second claim for asylum, which was refused on 21 August 2001.
The applicant absconded. He was arrested on 10 October 2001 and held in
an immigration detention centre, from which he absconded in February
2002. He was rearrested on 19 September 2002 and detained at Belmarsh
Prison under immigration law provisions.
29
66. On 2 October 2003 the Secretary of State certified him as an

international terrorist under section 21 of the 2001 Act and made a
deportation order against him on grounds of national security.
67. In its judgment of 12 July 2004, dismissing the eleventh applicants
appeal against certification, SIAC set out the open case against him. It was
alleged that he was an established and senior member of the Abu Doha
group (see paragraph 26 above). In July 2001 he had attempted to travel to
Chechnya and, when arrested by the Georgian police, he had been found in
possession of telephone numbers associated with a senior member of the
Abu Doha group and a named member of GSPC, who was known to be
involved in fund-raising for the Chechen Mujahaddin. He was alleged to
have provided money and logistical support to a North African extremist
Islamist network based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with links to al-Qaeda,
and to have assisted members of the Abu Doha group in travelling to
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chechnya. He had lived at the Finsbury Park
Mosque for over a year in 1999/2000. He was very security-conscious and
during a trip to St Albans in September 2001 he had taken measures to
avoid being followed. When he was arrested in September 2002 he was
found in possession of a false Belgian passport bearing the photograph of a
senior member of the Abu Doha group. He was alleged to have been heavily
involved in the supply of false documents and the fraudulent use of cheque
books and credit cards.
68. The applicant filed a written statement in which he denied being an
international terrorist. He admitted that he had travelled to Afghanistan in
1999 and that he had attempted to go to Chechnya in 2001, but claimed that
his interest in these countries was no more than that shown by many devout
Muslims. He refused to participate in the hearing of his appeal or to be
represented by a lawyer, in protest at the fundamental unfairness of the
procedure. In view of the applicants position, the special advocates decided
that his interests would best be served if they refrained from making
submissions on his behalf or asking questions of the witnesses in the closed
session.
69. In dismissing the applicants appeal, SIAC held as follows:
We recognise the difficulties faced by an Appellant who only sees only the open
material and can understand [the eleventh applicants] perception that the procedures
are unfair. However, each case will turn upon its own individual facts, and it would be
wrong to give the impression, which [his solicitor] sought to do, that this particular
Appellant had been placed in a position where he was prevented by reason of the
procedures under the Act from mounting an effective defence in response to the case
made against him.
We have summarised the information made available to [the eleventh applicant] at
the various stages of the procedure ... and [his] response to this information in his
written statement. While some of the assessments in the open material can fairly be
described as general assertions unsupported by any documentary evidence, in
response to which [the eleventh applicant] would not have been able to give any more
30
than an equally general denial, it is clear that in respect of other assessments [he] was
provided with a great deal of detailed information: names, dates, places and
supporting documents.
[The eleventh applicant] is in the best position to give an account of his whereabouts
and activities since he first claimed asylum in 1998. His written statement is
significant not so much for what it says, as for what it does not say. To take one
example: the visit to St Albans and the photo-booth where [the eleventh applicant]
says that the Respondents specific assertion is completely wrong ... [The eleventh
applicant] has not denied that he went to St Albans. He knows who accompanied him
and why they went there. He has not explained why they went there, nor has he
identified his companion, despite having been provided with the photographs taken
during the surveillance operation. ...
SIAC continued by noting the inconsistencies in the applicants various

accounts of his trips to Afghanistan, Georgia and Dubai and his failure to
deal with the Secretary of States allegations that he had associated with
various members of the Abu Doha group, identified by name. SIAC
continued:
The matters referred to ... are not an exhaustive list, merely the most obvious
examples of the way in which [the eleventh applicants] written statement fails to deal
with the open case made against him. Given the unsatisfactory nature of the statement
we do not feel able to give any significant weight to the general denials contained
within it ... We have dealt with these matters in some detail because they are useful
illustrations of the extent to which [the eleventh applicant] would have been able to
answer the case against him, if he had chosen to do so. While we do not draw any
adverse inference from [his] failure to give evidence, or otherwise participate in the
hearing of his appeal, we do have to determine his appeal on the evidence and we are
left with the position that there has been no effective challenge by way of evidence,
cross-examination or submission to the open material produced by the Respondent.
...
The standard of proof prescribed by section 25(2) of the 2001 Act is relatively low:
are there reasonable grounds for belief or suspicion. As explained above, we are
satisfied that this low threshold is easily crossed on the basis of the open material
alone. If the totality of the material, both open and closed, is considered, we have no
doubt that [the eleventh applicant] was a senior, and active, member of the Abu Doha
group as described in the Respondents evidence.
E. The conditions of detention and the effect of detention on the

applicants health
70. The detained applicants were all initially detained at Belmarsh
Prison in London. The sixth applicant was transferred to Woodhill Prison
and the first, seventh and tenth applicants were transferred to Broadmoor
Secure Mental Hospital.
71. They were held in prison under the same regime as other standardrisk Category A prisoners, which was considered the appropriate security
classification on the basis of the risk they posed. They were allowed
visitors, once those visitors had been security-cleared, and could associate
31
with other prisoners, make telephone calls and write and receive letters.
They had access to an imam and to their legal representatives. They had the
same level of access to health care, exercise, education and work as any
other prisoner of their security ranking.
Following a recommendation of the inspector appointed under the
2001 Act to review the detention regime, the Government created a Special
Unit at Woodhill Prison to house the 2001 Act detainees. The Unit, which
was refurbished in consultation with the detained applicants and their
representatives and had a specially selected and trained staff, would have
allowed for a more relaxed regime, including more out-of-cell time. The
applicants, however, chose not to move to the Unit, a decision which the
inspector found regrettable.
72. The first applicant, who alleged a history of ill-treatment in Israeli
detention and who had first been treated for depression in May 1999,
suffered a severe deterioration in his mental health while detained in
Belmarsh Prison. He was transferred to Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital
in July 2002.
73. The seventh applicant reported a family history of psychiatric
disorder and had experienced depression as an adolescent. He claimed to
suffer increasingly throughout his detention from depression, paranoia and
auditory hallucinations. He attempted suicide in May 2004 and was
transferred to Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital on 17 November 2004.
74. The tenth applicant, a double amputee, claimed to have been
detained and tortured in Algeria. He suffered a deterioration in his physical
and mental health in Belmarsh Prison. He went on hunger strike in
May/June 2003 and refused to use the prostheses which had been issued to
him or to cooperate with his nurses. Early in November 2003, the prison
authorities withdrew his nursing care. His legal representatives applied for
judicial review of this decision and in December 2003 nursing care was
resumed following the order of the Administrative Court. On 1 November
2004 the tenth applicant was transferred to Broadmoor Secure Mental
Hospital.
75. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) visited the detained
applicants in February 2002 and again in March 2004, and made a number
of criticisms of the conditions in which the detained applicants were held.
The Government rejected these criticisms (see paragraphs 101-102 below).
76. In October 2004, at the request of the applicants legal
representatives, a group of eight consultant psychiatrists prepared a Joint
Psychiatric Report on the detained applicants, which concluded:
The detainees originate from countries where mental illness is highly stigmatised.
In addition, for devout Muslims there is a direct prohibition against suicide. This is
particularly significant given the number who have attempted or are considering
suicide. All of the detainees have serious mental health problems which are the direct
32
result of, or are seriously exacerbated by, the indefinite nature of the detention. The
mental health problems predominantly take the form of major depressive disorder and
anxiety. A number of detainees have developed psychotic symptoms, as they have
deteriorated. Some detainees are also experiencing PTSD [post-traumatic stress
disorder] either as a result of their pre-migration trauma, the circumstances around
their arrest and imprisonment or the interaction between the two.
Continued deterioration in their mental health is affected also by the nature of, and
their mistrust in, the prison regime and the appeals process as well as the underlying
and central factor of the indefinite nature of detention. The prison health-care system
is unable to meet their health needs adequately. There is a failure to perceive selfharm and distressed behaviour as part of the clinical condition rather than merely
being seen as manipulation. There is inadequate provision for complex physical health
problems.
Their mental health problems are unlikely to resolve while they are maintained in
their current situation and given the evidence of repeated interviews it is highly likely
that they will continue to deteriorate while in detention.
The problems described by the detainees are remarkably similar to the problems
identified in the literature examining the impact of immigration detention. This
literature describes very high levels of depression and anxiety and eloquently makes
the point that the length of time in detention relates directly to the severity of
symptoms and that it is detention per se which is causing these problems to
deteriorate.
77. For the purposes of the present proceedings, the Government

requested a Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr J., to comment on the above Joint
Psychiatric Report. Dr J. was critical of the methodology and conclusions of
the authors of the Joint Report. In particular, he wrote (references to other
reports omitted):
I would comment that I find many of the assertions made do not bear close
inspection. For example in the case of [the first applicant] it was my finding after a
careful and detailed assessment that his mental state after imprisonment and then
detention in Broadmoor Hospital was, overall, no worse and arguably no better than it
had been before he was arrested. Nor do his records suggest initial improvement
followed by deterioration in Broadmoor Hospital. I found he deteriorated in HMP
Belmarsh [Prison] because he chose to go on hunger strike and that he had a
fluctuating course in Broadmoor Hospital despite agreeing to eat, his histrionic
behaviour in both places being essentially the same. In his case I found the diagnosis
to be one of personality disorder, diagnoses of major depressive disorder, psychosis
and PTSD not being sustainable. Moreover, it was my finding that his frequent selfharming was indeed manipulative.
...
I am not alone in finding the diagnoses claimed by the authors of this report to be
mistaken and have drawn attention in my own report to the scepticism of some others
who have reported on [the first and seventh applicants]. It is not the case therefore that
there is the consensus of opinion claimed in the report and I note that in both the cases
I assessed [the first and seventh applicants], their so-called psychotic symptoms
claimed by some reporters and said not to be present before they were detained, were
in fact present before they were arrested.
33
An issue I find to be of the greatest concern relates to the tacit acceptance of

information gained by self-report. It appears to be accepted by the authors of the
report, for example, that three of the detainees had been the victims of detention and
torture and all felt themselves seriously threatened prior to migration. Nowhere have I
seen any evidence to corroborate these claims or indeed any attempt to check them.
As it is the case that immigrants and asylum-seekers need to justify their attempts to
gain entry to another country, is it not possible or even probable that some may not
always be entirely truthful in what they claim about their past experiences or their
current symptoms? Where alleged terrorists are concerned it should be borne in mind
that they have denied such allegations in spite of the open and closed evidence against
them, which has been considered at the highest level. Surely this should raise doubts
about their truthfulness?
F. The release of the fifth applicant on bail

78. On 20 January 2004, SIAC decided that it should, in principle, grant
bail to the fifth applicant. The Secretary of State attempted to appeal against
this decision but was informed by the Court of Appeal in an interim
decision dated 12 February 2004 that it had no jurisdiction to entertain an
appeal.
79. SIAC explained its reasons for granting bail in greater detail in a
judgment dated 22 April 2004. It held that under the 2001 Act it had a
power to grant bail only in an exceptional case, where it was satisfied that if
bail were not granted the detainees mental or physical condition would
deteriorate to such an extent as to render his continued detention a breach of
Article 3 of the Convention on grounds of inhumanity, or Article 8 on
grounds of disproportionality.
80. SIAC noted that there had been concerns about the fifth applicants
mental health among prison staff from May 2002, although these concerns
had not been communicated to his legal representatives. In December 2003
he had suffered a serious relapse into severe depression with psychotic
symptoms, including auditory hallucinations and suicide ideation. A number
of psychologists and psychiatrists had examined him, at the request of his
legal representatives and at the initiative of the Home Office, and had
agreed that he was seriously ill and that his mental health would be likely to
improve if he were allowed to go home. SIAC concluded:
We do not think that the threshold has been crossed so that there is a breach of [the
fifth applicants] human rights. The jurisprudence of the [European Court of Human
Rights] emphasises the high threshold which must be crossed and that detention is
unlikely to be regarded as disproportionate unless it at least verges on treatment which
would constitute a breach of Article 3. But we are satisfied that, if he were not
released, there would be such a breach. To permit someone to reach a state whereby
he requires treatment in a special hospital or continuous care and attention to ensure
he does not harm himself can constitute a breach of Article 8, unless perhaps there is
no possible alternative to detention, and probably of Article 3. As we have said, we do
not have to wait until that situation exists. Provided that we are persuaded, as we are,
34
that the conditions we impose are sufficient to minimise the risk to the security of the
State if [the fifth applicant] is released, we can act as we have.
We must emphasise that the grant of bail is exceptional. We are only doing so
because the medical evidence is all one way and the detention has caused the mental
illness which will get worse. ...
81. The fifth applicant was, therefore, released on bail on 22 April 2004
on conditions amounting to house arrest. He was not permitted to leave his
home address and had to wear an electronic tag at all times. He had no
Internet access and a telephone link to the Security Service only. He was
required to report by telephone to the Security Service five times a day and
allow its agents access to his home at any time. He was not permitted
contact with any person other than his wife and child, legal representative
and a Home Office-approved doctor or see any visitor except with prior
Home Office approval.
G. Events following the House of Lords judgment of 16 December
2004
82. The declaration of incompatibility made by the House of Lords on
16 December 2004, in common with all such declarations, was not binding
on the parties to the litigation (see paragraph 94 below). The applicants
remained in detention, except for the second and fourth applicants who had
elected to leave the United Kingdom and the fifth applicant who had been
released on bail on conditions amounting to house arrest. Moreover, none of
the applicants was entitled, under domestic law, to compensation in respect
of their detention. The applicants, therefore, lodged their application to the
Court on 21 January 2005.
83. At the end of January 2005, the Government announced their
intention to repeal Part 4 of the 2001 Act and replace it with a regime of
control orders, which would impose various restrictions on individuals,
regardless of nationality, reasonably suspected of being involved in
terrorism.
84. Those applicants who remained in detention were released on
10-11 March 2005 and immediately made subject to control orders under
the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which came into effect on 11 March
2005.
85. The Government withdrew the derogation notice on 16 March 2005.
86. On 11 August 2005, following negotiations commenced towards the
end of 2003 to seek from the Algerian and Jordanian governments
assurances that the applicants would not be ill-treated if returned, the
Government served notices of intention to deport on the fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh applicants. These applicants were taken
into immigration custody pending removal to Algeria (the fifth, sixth,
seventh, ninth, tenth and eleventh applicants) and Jordan (the eighth
35
applicant). On 9 April 2008 the Court of Appeal ruled that the eighth
applicant could not lawfully be extradited to Jordan, because it was likely
that evidence which had been obtained by torture could be used against him
there at trial, in flagrant violation of his right to a fair trial. At the date of
adoption of the present judgment, the case was pending before the House of
Lords.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE
A. Detention pending deportation before the passing of the 2001 Act
87. Under section 3(5) of the Immigration Act 1971 (the 1971 Act) the
Secretary of State could make a deportation order against a non-national, on
the ground that the deportation would be conducive to the public good, for
reasons of national security, inter alia. A person who was the subject of a
deportation order could be detained pending deportation (the 1971 Act,
Schedule 3, paragraph 2). However, it was held in R. v. Governor of
Durham Prison, ex parte Hardial Singh [1984] 1 WLR 704 that the power
to detain under the above provision was limited to such time as was
reasonable to enable the process of deportation to be carried out. Detention
was not, therefore, permissible under the 1971 Act where deportation was
known to be impossible, whether because there was no country willing to
take the person in question or because there would be a risk of torture or
other serious ill-treatment to the proposed deportee in his or her country of
origin.
B. The Terrorism Act 2000
88. In July 2000 Parliament enacted the Terrorism Act 2000. As Lord
Bingham noted in his judgment in the present case, this was a substantial
measure, with 131 sections and 16 Schedules, intended to overhaul,
modernise and strengthen the law relating to the growing problem of
terrorism. Terrorism was defined, in section 1 of the Act, as:
... the use or threat of action where
(a) the action falls within subsection (2);
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the
public or a section of the public; and
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or
ideological cause.
(2) Action falls within this subsection if it
(a) involves serious violence against a person;
(b) involves serious damage to property;
36
(c) endangers a persons life, other than that of the person committing the action;
(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the
public; or
(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic
system.
(3) The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use
of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied.
(4) In this section
(a) action includes action outside the United Kingdom;
(b) a reference to any person or to property is a reference to any person, or to
property, wherever situated;
(c) a reference to the public includes a reference to the public of a country other
than the United Kingdom; and
(d) the government means the government of the United Kingdom, of a part of the
United Kingdom or of a country other than the United Kingdom.
(5) In this Act a reference to action taken for the purposes of terrorism includes a
reference to action taken for the benefit of a proscribed organisation.
For the purposes of the Act, an organisation was proscribed if:

3.(1) ...
(a) it is listed in Schedule 2; or
(b) it operates under the same name as an organisation listed in that Schedule.
(2) Subsection (1)(b) shall not apply in relation to an organisation listed in
Schedule 2 if its entry is the subject of a note in that Schedule.
(3) The Secretary of State may by order
(a) add an organisation to Schedule 2;
(b) remove an organisation from that Schedule;
(c) amend that Schedule in some other way.
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect
of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) an organisation is concerned in terrorism if
it
(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism;
(b) prepares for terrorism;
(c) promotes or encourages terrorism; or
(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism.
89. Part 2 of the Act created offences of membership and support of

proscribed organisations; it created offences of fund-raising, use and
possession of terrorist funds, entering into an arrangement for the transfer of
terrorist funds, money-laundering and failing to disclose suspect money-
37
laundering. There were a number of further substantive offences in Part 4,

including offences of weapons training; directing terrorism; possession,
without reasonable excuse, of items likely to be useful to a person
committing or preparing an act of terrorism; and collection, without
reasonable excuse, of information likely to be useful to a person committing
or preparing an act of terrorism. By section 62, the Act had extraterritorial
scope, in that a person within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom might
be prosecuted for any of the above offences regardless of where the acts in
furtherance of those offences were committed.
C. The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
90. Part 4 of the 2001 Act (see paragraph 12 above), which was headed
Immigration and Asylum, set out powers which enabled the detention of
non-nationals suspected of being international terrorists, even where their
deportation was for the time being impossible. The 2001 Act provided, so
far as material:
PART 4
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM
Suspected international terrorists
21. Suspected international terrorist: certification
(1) The Secretary of State may issue a certificate under this section in respect of a
person if the Secretary of State reasonably
(a) believes that the persons presence in the United Kingdom is a risk to national
security; and
(b) suspects that the person is a terrorist.
(2) In subsection (1)(b) terrorist means a person who
(a) is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of
international terrorism;
(b) is a member of or belongs to an international terrorist group; or
(c) has links with an international terrorist group.
(3) A group is an international terrorist group for the purposes of subsection (2)(b)
and (c) if
(a) it is subject to the control or influence of persons outside the United Kingdom;
and
(b) the Secretary of State suspects that it is concerned in the commission,
preparation or instigation of acts of international terrorism.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (2)(c) a person has links with an international
terrorist group only if he supports or assists it.
(5) In this Part
38
terrorism has the meaning given by section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11);
and
suspected international terrorist means a person certified under subsection (1).
(6) Where the Secretary of State issues a certificate under subsection (1) he shall as
soon as is reasonably practicable
(a) take reasonable steps to notify the person certified; and
(b) send a copy of the certificate to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.
(7) The Secretary of State may revoke a certificate issued under subsection (1).
(8) A decision of the Secretary of State in connection with certification under this
section may be questioned in legal proceedings only under section 25 or 26.
(9) An action of the Secretary of State taken wholly or partly in reliance on a
certificate under this section may be questioned in legal proceedings only by or in the
course of proceedings under
(a) section 25 or 26; or
(b) section 2 of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 (c. 68)
(appeal).
22. Deportation, removal, etc.
(1) An action of a kind specified in subsection (2) may be taken in respect of a
suspected international terrorist despite the fact that (whether temporarily or
indefinitely) the action cannot result in his removal from the United Kingdom because
of
(a) a point of law which wholly or partly relates to an international agreement; or
(b) a practical consideration ...
(2) The actions mentioned in subsection (1) are
...
(e) making a deportation order ...
(3) Action of a kind specified in subsection (2) which has effect in respect of a
suspected international terrorist at the time of his certification under section 21 shall
be treated as taken again (in reliance on subsection (1) above) immediately after
certification.
23. Detention
(1) A suspected international terrorist may be detained under a provision specified
in subsection (2) despite the fact that his removal or departure from the United
Kingdom is prevented (whether temporarily or indefinitely) by
(a) a point of law which wholly or partly relates to an international agreement; or
(b) a practical consideration ...
(2) The provisions mentioned in subsection (1) are
(a) paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) (detention of
persons liable to examination or removal); and
(b) paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 to that Act (detention pending deportation).
39
Part 4 of the 2001 Act included a provision that the legislation would
remain in force for five years only and was subject to an annual affirmative
resolution by both Houses of Parliament.
D. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC)
91. SIAC was set up in response to the Courts judgment in Chahal v.
the United Kingdom ([GC], 15 November 1996, Reports of Judgments and
Decisions 1996-V). It is a tribunal composed of independent judges, with a
right of appeal against its decisions on a point of law to the Court of Appeal
and the House of Lords.
By section 25 of the 2001 Act:
(1) A suspected international terrorist may appeal to the Special Immigration
Appeals Commission against his certification under section 21.
(2) On an appeal [SIAC] must cancel the certificate if
(a) it considers that there are no reasonable grounds for a belief or suspicion of the
kind referred to in section 21(1) (a) or (b); or
(b) if it considers that for some other reason the certificate should not have been
issued.
SIAC was required to carry out a first review to ensure that the certificate
was still justified six months after the issue of the certificate or six months
after the final determination of an appeal against certification, and thereafter
at three-monthly intervals.
Under section 30 of the 2001 Act, any legal challenge to the derogation
under Article 15 of the Convention had also to be made to SIAC.
92. SIAC has a special procedure which enables it to consider not only
material which can be made public (open material) but also material
which, for reasons of national security, cannot (closed material). Neither
the appellant nor his legal adviser can see the closed material. Accordingly,
one or more security-cleared counsel, referred to as special advocates, are
appointed by the solicitor-general to act on behalf of each appellant.
93. In the certification appeals before SIAC at issue in the present case,
the open statements and evidence concerning each appellant were served
first, and the special advocate could discuss this material with the appellant
and his legal advisers and take instructions generally. Then the closed
material would be disclosed to the judges and to the special advocate, from
which point there could be no further contact between the latter and the
appellant and/or his representatives, save with the permission of SIAC. It
was the special advocates role during the closed sessions to make
submissions on behalf of the appellant, both as regards procedural matters,
such as the need for further disclosure, and as to the substance of the case.
In respect of each appeal against certification, SIAC issued both an open
40
and a closed judgment. The special advocate could see both but the
detainee and his representatives could see only the open judgment.
E. Declarations of incompatibility under the Human Rights Act 1998
94. Section 4 of the 1998 Act provides that where a court finds that
primary legislation is in breach of the Convention, the court may make a
declaration of incompatibility. Such a declaration does not affect the
validity of the provision in respect of which it is made and is not binding on
the parties to the proceedings in which it is made, but special arrangements
may be made (section 10) to amend the provision in order to remove the
incompatibility (see, further, Burden v. the United Kingdom [GC],
no. 13378/05, 21-24 and 40-44, ECHR 2008).
F. The Terrorism Act 2006
95. The Terrorism Act 2006 came into force on 30 March 2006, creating
a number of offences to extend criminal liability to acts preparatory to the
terrorist offences created by the Terrorism Act 2000. The new offences were
encouragement, dissemination of publications, preparation and training. The
offences were designed to intervene at an early stage in terrorist activity and
thus prevent the development of more serious conduct. They were also
designed to be easier to prove.
G. Consideration of the use of special advocates under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
96. On 31 October 2007 the House of Lords gave judgment in Secretary
of State for the Home Department (Respondent) v. MB (FC) (Appellant)
[2007] UKHL 46, which concerned a challenge to a non-derogating control
order made by the Secretary of State under sections 2 and 3(1)(a) of the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. The House of Lords had to decide, inter
alia, whether procedures provided for by section 3 of the 2005 Act,
involving closed hearings and special advocates, were compatible with
Article 6 of the Convention, given that, in the case of one of the appellants,
they had resulted in the case against him being in its essence entirely
undisclosed, with no specific allegation of terrorism-related activity being
contained in open material.
The House of Lords was unanimous in holding that the proceedings in
question determined civil rights and obligations and thus attracted the
protection of Article 6. On the question of compliance, the majority
(Baroness Hale, Lord Carswell and Lord Brown) held that although in many
cases the special-advocate procedure would provide a sufficient
counterbalance where the Secretary of State wished to withhold material
41
upon which she wished to rely in order to establish the existence of

reasonable grounds for suspecting that the controlee was or had been
involved in terrorism-related activity, each case had to be considered
individually. Baroness Hale put it as follows:
65. ... It would all depend upon the nature of the case; what steps had been taken to
explain the detail of the allegations to the controlled person so that he could anticipate
what the material in support might be; what steps had been taken to summarise the
closed material in support without revealing names, dates or places; the nature and
content of the material withheld; how effectively the special advocate had been able to
challenge it on behalf of the controlled person; and what difference its disclosure
might have made. All of these factors would be relevant to whether the controlled
person had been given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for the
order.
66. I do not think that we can be confident that Strasbourg would hold that every
control order hearing in which the special-advocate procedure had been used, as
contemplated by the 2005 Act and Part 76 of the Civil Procedure Rules, would be
sufficient to comply with Article 6. However, with strenuous efforts from all, difficult
and time-consuming though it will be, it should usually be possible to accord the
controlled person a substantial measure of procedural justice. Everyone involved
will have to do their best to ensure that the principles of judicial inquiry are
complied with to the fullest extent possible. The Secretary of State must give as full as
possible an explanation of why she considers that the grounds in section 2(1) are made
out. The fuller the explanation given, the fuller the instructions that the special
advocates will be able to take from the client before they see the closed material. Both
judge and special advocates will have to probe the claim that the closed material
should remain closed with great care and considerable scepticism. There is ample
evidence from elsewhere of a tendency to over-claim the need for secrecy in terrorism
cases: see Serrin Turner and Stephen J Schulhofer, The Secrecy Problem in Terrorism
Trials, 2005, Brennan Centre for Justice at NYU School of Law. Both judge and
special advocates will have stringently to test the material which remains closed. All
must be alive to the possibility that material could be redacted or gisted in such a way
as to enable the special advocates to seek the clients instructions upon it. All must be
alive to the possibility that the special advocates be given leave to ask specific and
carefully tailored questions of the client. Although not expressly provided for in CPR
r 76.24, the special advocate should be able to call or have called witnesses to rebut
the closed material. The nature of the case may be such that the client does not need to
know all the details of the evidence in order to make an effective challenge.
67. The best judge of whether the proceedings have afforded a sufficient and
substantial measure of procedural protection is likely to be the judge who conducted
the hearing. ...
Lord Carswell observed:

There is a very wide spectrum of cases in which closed material is relied on by the
Secretary of State. At one extreme there may be cases in which the sole evidence
adverse to the controlee is closed material, he cannot be told what the evidence is or
even given its gist and the special advocate is not in a position to take sufficient
instructions to mount an effective challenge to the adverse allegations. At the other
end there may be cases where the probative effect of the closed material is very slight
or merely corroborative of strong open material and there is no obstacle to presenting
a defence. There is an infinite variety of possible cases in between. The balance
42
between the open material and the closed material and the probative nature of each
will vary from case to case. The special advocate may be able to discern with
sufficient clarity how to deal with the closed material without obtaining direct
instructions from the controlee. These are matters for the judge to weigh up and assess
in the process of determining whether the controlee has had a fair trial. The
assessment is ... fact-specific. The judge who has seen both the open and the closed
material and had the benefit of the contribution of the special advocate is in much the
best position to make it. I do consider, however, that there is a fairly heavy burden on
the controlee to establish that there has been a breach of Article 6, for the legitimate
public interest in withholding material on valid security grounds should be given due
weight. The courts should not be too ready to hold that a disadvantage suffered by the
controlee through the withholding of material constitutes a breach of Article 6.
Lord Brown held as follows:

There may perhaps be cases, wholly exceptional though they are likely to be,
where, despite the best efforts of all concerned by way of redaction, anonymisation,
and gisting, it will simply be impossible to indicate sufficient of the Secretary of
States case to enable the suspect to advance any effective challenge to it. Unless in
these cases the judge can nevertheless feel quite sure that in any event no possible
challenge could conceivably have succeeded (a difficult but not, I think, impossible
conclusion to arrive at ...), he would have to conclude that the making or, as the case
may be, confirmation of an order would indeed involve significant injustice to the
suspect. In short, the suspect in such a case would not have been accorded even a
substantial measure of procedural justice (Chahal, [cited above] 131)
notwithstanding the use of the special-advocate procedure; the very essence of [his]
right [to a fair hearing] [will have been] impaired (Tinnelly & Sons Ltd [and Others]
and McElduff and Others v. [the] United Kingdom, [cited below] 72).
Lord Bingham did not dissent but employed different reasoning. He held
that it was necessary to look at the process as a whole and consider whether
a procedure had been used which involved significant injustice to the
controlee; while the use of special advocates could help to enhance the
measure of procedural justice available to a controlled person, it could not
fully remedy the grave disadvantages of a person not being aware of the
case against him and not being able, therefore, effectively to instruct the
special advocate.
Lord Hoffmann, dissenting, held that once the trial judge had decided
that disclosure would be contrary to the public interest, the use of special
advocates provided sufficient safeguards for the controlee and there would
never in these circumstances be a breach of Article 6.
97. In Secretary of State for the Home Department v. AF [2008] EWCA
Civ 1148, the Court of Appeal (Sir Anthony Clark MR and Waller LJ;
Sedley LJ dissenting), gave the following guidance, based on the majority
opinions in the case of MB (see paragraph 96 above), regarding compliance
with Article 6 in control order cases using special advocates (extract from
the head-note):
(1) In deciding whether the hearing under section 3(10) of the 2005 Act infringed
the controlees rights under Article 6 the question was whether, taken as a whole, the
hearing was fundamentally unfair to the controlee, or he was not accorded a
43
substantial measure of procedural justice or the very essence of his right to a fair
hearing was impaired. More broadly, the question was whether the effect of the
process was that the controlee was exposed to significant injustice. (2) All proper
steps ought to be taken to provide the controlee with as much information as possible,
both in terms of allegation and evidence, if necessary by appropriate gisting.
(3) Where the full allegations and evidence were not provided for reasons of national
security at the outset, the controlee had to be provided with a special advocate. In such
a case the following principles applied. (4) There was no principle that a hearing
would be unfair in the absence of open disclosure to the controlee of an irreducible
minimum of allegation or evidence. Alternatively, if there was, the irreducible
minimum could, depending on the circumstances, be met by disclosure of as little
information as was provided in AFs case, which was very little indeed. (5) Whether a
hearing would be unfair depended on all the circumstances, including the nature of the
case, what steps had been taken to explain the detail of the allegations to the
controlled person so that he could anticipate what the material in support might be,
what steps had been taken to summarise the closed material in support without
revealing names, dates or places, the nature and content of the material withheld, how
effectively the special advocate was able to challenge it on behalf of the controlee and
what difference its disclosure would or might make. (6) In considering whether open
disclosure to the controlee would have made a difference to the answer to whether
there were reasonable grounds for suspicion that the controlee was or had been
involved in terrorist-related activity, the court had to have fully in mind the problems
for the controlee and the special advocates and take account of all the circumstances
of the case, including what, if any, information was openly disclosed and how
effective the special advocates were able to be. The correct approach to and the
weight to be given to any particular factor would depend upon the particular
circumstances. (7) There were no rigid principles. What was fair was essentially a
matter for the judge, with whose decision the Court of Appeal would very rarely
interfere.
III. DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL COMMENT ON PART 4 OF

THE 2001 ACT
A. The Newton Committee
98. Part 4 of the 2001 Act provided for the creation of a Committee of
Privy Counsellors to review its operation. The Committee, under the
chairmanship of Lord Newton, reported in December 2003. Having
recorded the Home Offices argument that the threat from al-Qaeda
terrorism was predominantly from foreigners, the Newton Committees
report drew attention to:
... accumulating evidence that this is not now the case. The British suicide bombers
who attacked Tel Aviv in May 2003, Richard Reid (the Shoe Bomber), and recent
arrests suggest that the threat from UK citizens is real. Almost 30% of Terrorism Act
2000 suspects in the past year have been British. We have been told that, of the people
of interest to the authorities because of their suspected involvement in international
terrorism, nearly half are British nationals.
Given this evidence, the Newton Committee observed that not only were
there arguments of principle against having discriminatory provisions, but
44
there were also compelling arguments of limited efficacy in addressing the

terrorist threat. The Newton Committee therefore called for new legislation
to be introduced as a matter of urgency which would deal with the terrorist
threat without discrimination on grounds of nationality and which would not
require a derogation from Article 5 of the Convention.
99. In February 2004 the Government published their response to the
Newton Committees report. It continued to accept that the terrorist threat
came predominantly, but not exclusively, from foreign nationals and
made the following observation about the Newton Committees suggestion
that counter-terrorist measures should apply to all persons within the
jurisdiction regardless of nationality:
While it would be possible to seek other powers to detain British citizens who may
be involved in international terrorism it would be a very grave step. The Government
believes that such draconian powers would be difficult to justify. Experience has
demonstrated the dangers of such an approach and the damage it can do to community
cohesion and thus to support from all parts of the public that is so essential to
countering the terrorist threat.
The Government also indicated that work was under way to try to
establish framework agreements with potential destination countries for the
purposes of deportation of terrorist suspects.
B. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights
100. The Joint Committee has constitutional responsibility in the United
Kingdom for scrutinising legislation to ensure that it is compatible with
Convention rights. In its Second Report of the Session 2001-02, drawn up
very shortly after publication of the Bill which became the 2001 Act, the
Joint Committee expressed concern at the potentially discriminatory effect
of the proposed measure, as follows:
38. Second, by relying on immigration legislation to provide for the detention of
suspected international terrorists, the Bill risks discriminating, in the authorisation of
detention without charge, between those suspected international terrorists who are
subject to immigration control and those who have an unconditional right to remain in
the United Kingdom. We are concerned that this might lead to discrimination in the
enjoyment of the right to liberty on the ground of nationality. If that could not be
shown to have an objective, rational and proportionate justification, it might lead to
actions which would be incompatible with Article 5 of the ECHR [the Convention]
either taken alone or in combination with the right to be free of discrimination in the
enjoyment of Convention rights under Article 14 of the ECHR[the Convention]. It
could also lead to violations of the right to be free of discrimination under Article 26
and the right to liberty under Article 9 of the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights].
39. We raised this matter with the Home Secretary in oral evidence. Having
considered his response, we are not persuaded that the risk of discrimination on the
ground of nationality in the provisions of Part 4 of the Bill has been sufficiently taken
on board.
45
In its Sixth Report of the Session 2003-04 (23 February 2004), the Joint
Committee expressed deep concern about the human rights implications of
making the detention power an aspect of immigration law rather than antiterrorism law and warned of a significant risk that Part 4 violates the right
to be free of discrimination under ECHR [the Convention] Article 14.
Following the Report of the Newton Committee and the Secretary of States
discussion paper published in response to it, the Joint Committee returned to
this subject in its Eighteenth Report of the Session 2003-04 (21 July 2004),
paragraphs 42-44:
42. The discussion paper rejects the Newton Reports recommendation that new
legislation replacing Part 4 [of the 2001 Act] should apply equally to all nationalities
including British citizens. It states the Governments belief that it is defensible to
distinguish between foreign nationals and UK nationals because of their different
rights and responsibilities.
43. We have consistently expressed our concern that the provisions of Part 4 [of the
2001 Act] unjustifiably discriminate on grounds of nationality and are therefore in
breach of Article 14 ECHR [of the Convention]. Along with Lord Newton, we find it
extraordinary that the discussion paper asserts that seeking the same power to detain
British citizens would be a very grave step and that such draconian powers would
be difficult to justify.
44. The interests at stake for a foreign national and a UK national are the same:
their fundamental right to liberty under Article 5 ECHR [of the Convention] and
related procedural rights. Article 1 of the ECHR [the Convention] requires States to
secure the Convention rights to everyone within their jurisdiction. Article 14 requires
the enjoyment of Convention rights to be secured without discrimination on the
ground of nationality. The Governments explanation in its discussion paper of its
reluctance to seek the same powers in relation to UK nationals appears to suggest that
it regards the liberty interests of foreign nationals as less worthy of protection than
exactly the same interests of UK nationals, which is impermissible under the
Convention.
C. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and

Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)
101. The CPT visited the detained applicants in February 2002 and again
in March 2004. In its report published on 9 June 2005, the CPT was critical
of the conditions in which the applicants were held in Belmarsh Prison and
Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital and reported allegations of ill-treatment
by staff. It found the regime in Woodhill Prison to be more relaxed. The
CPT found that the health of the majority of the detained applicants had
declined as a result of their detention, in particular its indefinite character.
The CPT stated in its report:
In fact, the information gathered during the 2004 visit reveals that the authorities
are at a loss at how to manage this type of detained person, imprisoned with no real
prospect of release and without the necessary support to counter the damaging effects
of this unique form of detention. They also highlight the limited capacity of the prison
46
system to respond to a task that is difficult to reconcile with its normal

responsibilities. The stated objective, in the response to the CPTs report on the
February 2002 visit, of formulating a strategy to enable the Prison Service to manage
most appropriately the care and detention of persons held under the 2001 Act, has not
been achieved.
Two years after the CPT visited these detained persons, many of them were in a
poor mental state as a result of their detention, and some were also in poor physical
condition. Detention had caused mental disorders in the majority of persons detained
under the [2001 Act] and for those who had been subjected to traumatic experiences
or even torture in the past, it had clearly reawakened the experience and even led to
the serious recurrence of former disorders. The trauma of detention had become even
more detrimental to their health since it was combined with an absence of control
resulting from the indefinite character of their detention, the uphill difficulty of
challenging their detention and the fact of not knowing what evidence was being used
against them to certify and/or uphold their certification as persons suspected of
international terrorism. For some of them, their situation at the time of the visit could
be considered as amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment.
102. The Government published their response to the CPTs 2004 report
on 9 June 2005. The Government strongly disputed the allegations of illtreatment by prison staff and pointed out that the detained applicants had at
their disposal the remedies provided by administrative and civil law to all
prisoners to complain of ill-treatment. The Governments response
continued:
Although the Government respects the conclusions reached by the delegates of the
[CPT] based on the observations on the day of visit, it categorically rejects the
suggestion that at any point during their detention the [2001 Act] detainees were
treated in an inhuman or degrading manner that may have amounted to a breach in
the United Kingdoms international human rights obligations. The Government firmly
believes that at all times the detainees received appropriate care and treatment in
Belmarsh and had access to all necessary medical support, both physical and
psychological, from medical support staff and doctors. The Government accepts that
the individuals had difficult backgrounds prior to detention, but does not accept that
detention had caused mental disorders. Some of the detainees had mental health
issues prior to detention, but that did not stop them engaging in the activities that led
to their certification and detention. Mental health issues do not prevent an individual
from posing a risk to national security.
...
The Government does not accept that those certified under [the 2001 Act] were
detained without any prospect of their release. ...
...
On no occasion did SIAC, or any other court, find that the conditions of detention
breached the absolute obligation imposed upon the Government by Article 3 of [the
Convention]. It is the Governments view that, given the extensive judicial safeguards
available to the detainees, the Government would not have been able to maintain the
detention of these individuals had the powers breached the detainees Article 3 rights
in any way. To suggest otherwise would be to ignore the extensive contact the
detainees had with the British judicial system and the absolute obligation upon the
judiciary to protect against any such breach.
47
D. The European Commissioner for Human Rights

103. In August 2002 the European Commissioner for Human Rights to
the Council of Europe published his opinion on certain aspects of the United
Kingdoms derogation from Article 5 of the Convention and Part 4 of the
2001 Act. In that opinion he expressly criticised the lack of sufficient
scrutiny by Parliament of the derogation provisions and questioned whether
the nature of the al-Qaeda threat was a justifiable basis for recognising a
public emergency threatening the life of the nation:
Whilst acknowledging the obligations of the governments to protect their citizens
against the threat of terrorism, the Commissioner is of the opinion that general appeals
to an increased risk of terrorist activity post September 11 2001 cannot, on their own
be sufficient to justify derogating from the Convention. Several European States long
faced with recurring terrorist activity have not considered it necessary to derogate
from Convention rights. Nor have any found it necessary to do so under the present
circumstances. Detailed information pointing to a real and imminent danger to public
safety in the United Kingdom will, therefore, have to be shown.
The Commissioner continued, with reference to the detention scheme

under Part 4 of the 2001 Act:
In so far as these measures are applicable only to non-deportable foreigners, they
might appear, moreover, to be ushering in a two-track justice, whereby different
human rights standards apply to foreigners and nationals.
104. On 8 June 2005 the Commissioner published a report arising out of

his visit to the United Kingdom in November 2004. He specifically referred
to the House of Lords decision in the applicants case and noted the fact
that the Government had not sought to renew the relevant provisions of the
2001 Act in March 2005. He welcomed the decision of the House of Lords,
which corresponded with his own previously published opinion, and also
welcomed the release of the applicants, emphasising that as a result of his
visit he was in a position personally to testify to the extremely agitated
psychological state of many of them. As a result of interviews which he
had conducted with, among others, the Home Secretary, the Lord
Chancellor, the Attorney-General, the Lord Chief Justice and the Director of
Public Prosecutions, the Commissioner also expressed a conclusion about
the availability under the law of the United Kingdom of alternative
measures to combat the threat of terrorism:
Terrorist activity not only must but can be combated within the existing framework
of human rights guarantees, which provide precisely for a balancing, in questions
concerning national security, of individual rights and the public interest and allow for
the use of proportionate special powers. What is required is well-resourced policing,
international cooperation and the forceful application of the law. It is to be noted, in
this context, that in the Terrorist Act 2000, the United Kingdom already has amongst
the toughest and most comprehensive anti-terror legislation in Europe.
48
E. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of

Racial Discrimination
105. The Committees Concluding Observations on the United
Kingdom, dated 10 December 2003, stated at paragraph 17:
17. The Committee is deeply concerned about provisions of the Anti-terrorism,
Crime and Security Act which provide for the indefinite detention without charge or
trial, pending deportation, of non-nationals of the United Kingdom who are suspected
of terrorism-related activities.
While acknowledging the State Partys national security concerns, the Committee
recommends that the State Party seek to balance those concerns with the protection of
human rights and its international legal obligations. In this regard, the Committee
draws the State Partys attention to its statement of 8 March 2002 in which it
underlines the obligation of States to ensure that measures taken in the struggle
against terrorism do not discriminate in purpose or effect on grounds of race, colour,
descent, or national or ethnic origin.
IV. OTHER RELEVANT COUNCIL OF EUROPE MATERIALS

A. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 1271
(2002)
106. On 24 January 2002 the Council of Europes Parliamentary
Assembly adopted Resolution 1271 (2002) which resolved, in paragraph 9:
In their fight against terrorism, Council of Europe members should not provide for
any derogations to the European Convention on Human Rights.
In paragraph 12, it also called on all member States to:

... refrain from using Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights
(derogation in time of emergency) to limit the rights and liberties guaranteed under its
Article 5 (right to liberty and security).
Apart from the United Kingdom, no other member State chose to

derogate from Article 5 1 after 11 September 2001.
B. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe
107. Following its meeting on 14 November 2001 to discuss
Democracies facing terrorism (CM/AS(2001) Rec 1534), the Committee
of Ministers adopted on 11 July 2002 Guidelines on human rights and the
fight against terrorism, which provided, inter alia:
I. States obligation to protect everyone against terrorism
States are under the obligation to take the measures needed to protect the
fundamental rights of everyone within their jurisdiction against terrorist acts,
especially the right to life. This positive obligation fully justifies States fight against
terrorism in accordance with the present guidelines.
49
II. Prohibition of arbitrariness

All measures taken by States to fight terrorism must respect human rights and the
principle of the rule of law, while excluding any form of arbitrariness, as well as any
discriminatory or racist treatment, and must be subject to appropriate supervision.
C. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance

(ECRI)
108. In its General Policy Recommendation No. 8 on combating racism
while fighting terrorism, published on 8 June 2004, ECRI considered it the
duty of the State to fight against terrorism; stressed that the response should
not itself encroach on the values of freedom, democracy, justice, the rule of
law, human rights and humanitarian law; stressed that the fight against
terrorism should not become a pretext under which racial discrimination
was allowed to flourish; noted that the fight against terrorism since
11 September 2001 had in some cases resulted in the adoption of
discriminatory legislation, notably on grounds of nationality, national or
ethnic origin and religion; stressed the responsibility of member States to
ensure that the fight against terrorism did not have a negative impact on any
minority group; and recommended States:
... to review legislation and regulations adopted in connection with the fight against
terrorism to ensure that these do not discriminate directly or indirectly against persons
or group of persons, notably on grounds of race, colour, language, religion,
nationality or national or ethnic origin, and to abrogate any such discriminatory
legislation.
V. THE NOTION OF A PUBLIC EMERGENCY UNDER ARTICLE 4

OF THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND
POLITICAL RIGHTS (ICCPR)
109. Article 4 1 of the ICCPR states as follows:
In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence
of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take
measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent
strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not
inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve
discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social
origin.
In spring 1984, a group of thirty-one experts in international law,

convened by the International Commission of Jurists, the International
Association of Penal law, the American Association for the International
Commission of Jurists, the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights and
the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences, met in
Siracusa (Italy) to consider the above provision, inter alia.
Paragraphs 39-40 of the resulting Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and
50
Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights declare, under the heading Public emergency which threatens the
life of the nation:
39. A State Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights pursuant to Article 4 (hereinafter
called derogation measures) only when faced with a situation of exceptional and
actual or imminent danger which threatens the life of the nation. A threat to the life of
the nation is one that:
(a) affects the whole of the population and either the whole or part of the territory
of the State; and
(b) threatens the physical integrity of the population, the political independence or
the territorial integrity of the State or the existence or basic functioning of institutions
indispensable to ensure and protect the rights recognised in the Covenant.
40. Internal conflict and unrest that do not constitute a grave and imminent threat to
the life of the nation cannot justify derogations under Article 4.
Paragraph 54 of the Siracusa Principles continues as follows:

54. The principle of strict necessity shall be applied in an objective manner. Each
measure shall be directed to an actual, clear, present, or imminent danger and may not
be imposed merely because of an apprehension of potential danger.
110. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in General

Comment No. 29 on Article 4 of the ICCPR (24 July 2001), observed in
paragraph 2:
Measures derogating from the provisions of the Covenant must be of an
exceptional and temporary nature.
VI. OTHER MATERIALS CONCERNING NON-DISCLOSURE OF

EVIDENCE IN NATIONAL SECURITY CASES
111. In Charkaoui v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration [2007]
1 SCR 350, McLachlin CJ, for the Supreme Court of Canada, observed in
paragraph 53:
Last but not least, a fair hearing requires that the affected person be informed of the
case against him or her, and be permitted to respond to it.
That right was not absolute and might be limited in the interests of
national security (paragraphs 57-58); however, paragraph 64 provides:
... The judge is therefore not in a position to compensate for the lack of informed
scrutiny, challenge and counter-evidence that a person familiar with the case could
bring. Such scrutiny is the whole point of the principle that a person whose liberty is
in jeopardy must know the case to meet. Here that principle has not merely been
limited; it has been effectively gutted. How can one meet a case one does not know?
112. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 542 US 507 (2004), OConnor J, writing for

the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, said
(p. 533):
51
We therefore hold that a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as

an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and
a fair opportunity to rebut the Governments factual assertions before a neutral
decision-maker [authority cited]. For more than a century the central meaning of
procedural due process has been clear: Parties whose rights are to be affected are
entitled to be heard; and in order that they may enjoy that right they must first be
notified ... These essential constitutional promises may not be eroded.
113. The Council of Europes Commissioner for Human Rights, in

paragraph 21 of his report of 8 June 2005 (see paragraph 104 above), and
the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights (see paragraph 100
above), in paragraph 76 of its Twelfth Report of the Session 2005-2006,
(HL Paper 122, HC 915) had difficulty in accepting that a hearing could be
fair if an adverse decision could be based on material that the controlled
person has no effective opportunity to challenge or rebut.
THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION
AND OF ARTICLE 13 TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH
ARTICLE 3
114. The applicants alleged that their detention under Part 4 of the 2001
Act breached their rights under Article 3 of the Convention, which provides:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.
They further complained that they were denied an effective remedy for
their Article 3 complaints, in breach of Article 13 of the Convention, which
states:
Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated
shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the
violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
A. The parties submissions

1. The applicants
115. The applicants stressed that each was in the United Kingdom
because the opportunity of a safe haven in his own country or elsewhere
was denied to him. The first applicant was a stateless Palestinian and had
nowhere else to go. Several had experienced torture before coming to the
United Kingdom. Under the 2001 Act they were put in the position of
having to choose between conditions of detention which they found
intolerable and the risk of whatever treatment they might have to suffer if
52
they consented to deportation. Moreover, their previous experiences and

pre-existing mental and physical problems made them particularly
vulnerable to the ill effects of arbitrary detention. The discrimination they
suffered, since only foreign nationals were subject to detention under the
2001 Act, compounded their anguish.
116. The high security conditions of detention, in Belmarsh Prison and
Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital, were inappropriate and damaging to
their health. More fundamentally, however, the indeterminate nature of the
detention, with no end in sight, and its actual long duration gave rise to
abnormal suffering, in excess of that inherent in detention. This was
compounded by other unusual aspects of the regime, such as the secret
nature of the evidence against them. The fact that the indifference of the
authorities to the applicants situation was sanctioned by parliamentary
statute did not mitigate their suffering.
117. Taken cumulatively, these factors caused the applicants an intense
degree of anguish. The medical evidence and reports of the CPT and group
of consultant psychiatrists (see paragraphs 101 and 76 above) demonstrated
that the detention regime also harmed or seriously risked harming all of
them and, in the case of the first, fifth, seventh and tenth applicants, did so
extensively.
118. The applicants claimed that SIACs power to grant bail did not
effectively function during the period when they were detained: firstly,
because the scope of the remedy was jurisdictionally unclear; secondly,
because the procedure was subject to delay; thirdly, because the threshold
for granting bail was too high. An applicant for bail was required to
demonstrate an overwhelming likelihood that his continued detention
would lead to a physical or mental deterioration, such as to constitute
inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.
The jurisdiction was described as exceptional, requiring the
circumstances to be extreme. Even then, the only available remedy was to
substitute house arrest for detention (see paragraph 79 above).
2. The Government
119. The Government denied that the applicants rights under Article 3
had been infringed. They pointed out that SIAC and the Court of Appeal
had rejected the applicants complaints under Article 3 and that the House
of Lords had not found it necessary to determine them (see paragraphs 15,
16 and 22 above).
120. Detention without charge was not in itself contrary to Article 3 and
in many instances it was permitted under Article 5 1. The detention was
indeterminate but not indefinite. The legislation remained in force for only
five years and was subject to annual renewal by both Houses of Parliament.
Each applicants detention depended on his individual circumstances
continuing to justify it, including the degree of threat to national security
53
which he represented and the possibility to deport him to a safe country, and
was subject to review every six months by SIAC. Each applicant was
informed of the reason for the suspicion against him and given as much of
the underlying evidence as possible and provided with as fair a procedure as
possible to challenge the grounds for his detention. Moreover, SIAC was
able to grant bail if necessary. The applicants were not, therefore, detained
without hope of release: on the contrary there was the opportunity to apply
for release together with mandatory review by the court to ensure that
detention remained both lawful and proportionate in all the circumstances. It
also remained open to the applicants to leave the United Kingdom, as the
second and fourth applicants chose to do.
121. The applicants were judged to pose a serious threat to national
security and were accordingly held in high security conditions, which were
not inhuman or degrading. Each was provided with appropriate treatment
for his physical and mental health problems and the individual
circumstances of each applicant, including his mental health, were taken
into account in determining where he should be held and whether he should
be released on bail. A Special Unit was created at Woodhill Prison of which
the applicants refused to make use (see paragraph 71 above).
122. To the extent that the applicants relied on their individual
conditions of detention and their personal circumstances, they had not
exhausted domestic remedies because they had not made any attempt to
bring the necessary challenges. Any specific complaint about the conditions
of detention could have been the subject of separate legal challenge. The
prison authorities were subject to the requirements of the 1998 Act (see
paragraph 94 above) and had an obligation under section 6(1) to act
compatibly with the Article 3 rights of the applicants in their custody. In so
far as the applicants complaints under Article 3 were based on the
indeterminate nature of their detention, this was provided for by primary
legislation (Part 4 of the 2001 Act), and Article 13 did not import the right
to challenge in a domestic court a deliberate choice expressed by the
legislature.
B. The Courts assessment
1. Admissibility
123. The Court observes that the second applicant was placed in
detention under Part 4 of the 2001 Act on 19 December 2001 and that he
was released on 22 December 2001, following his decision voluntarily to
return to Morocco (see paragraph 35 above). Since he was, therefore,
detained for only a few days and since there is no evidence that during that
time he suffered any hardship beyond that inherent in detention, his
54
complaint under Article 3 is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of

Article 35 3 of the Convention.
Since Article 13 requires the provision of a domestic remedy in respect
of arguable complaints under the Convention (see, for example, Ramirez
Sanchez v. France [GC], no. 59450/00, 157, ECHR 2006-IX), it follows
that the second applicants complaint under Article 13 is also manifestly illfounded.
Both these complaints by the second applicant must therefore be declared
inadmissible.
124. The Court notes the Governments assertion that there was a
remedy available to the applicants under the 1998 Act, which they neglected
to use. However, since the applicants complain under Article 13 that the
remedies at their disposal in connection with their Article 3 complaints were
ineffective, the Court considers that it is necessary to consider the
Governments objection concerning non-exhaustion together with the merits
of the complaints under Articles 3 and 13.
125. The Court considers that, save those of the second applicant, the
applicants complaints under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention raise
complex issues of law and fact, the determination of which should depend
on an examination of the merits. It concludes, therefore, that this part of the
application is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35
3 of the Convention. No other ground of inadmissibility has been raised
and it must be declared admissible.
2. The merits
(a) General principles
126. The Court is acutely conscious of the difficulties faced by States in

protecting their populations from terrorist violence. This makes it all the
more important to stress that Article 3 enshrines one of the most
fundamental values of democratic societies. Unlike most of the substantive
clauses of the Convention and of Protocols Nos. 1 and 4, Article 3 makes no
provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under
Article 15 2 notwithstanding the existence of a public emergency
threatening the life of the nation. Even in the most difficult of
circumstances, such as the fight against terrorism, and irrespective of the
conduct of the person concerned, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms
torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment (see Ramirez
Sanchez, cited above, 115-16).
127. Ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall
within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this minimum depends on
all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its
physical or mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of
health of the victim (see Kafkaris v. Cyprus [GC], no. 21906/04, 95,
55
ECHR 2008). The Court has considered treatment to be inhuman because,

inter alia, it was premeditated, was applied for hours at a stretch and caused
either actual bodily injury or intense physical or mental suffering. It has
deemed treatment to be degrading because it was such as to arouse in the
victims feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and
debasing them (see, among other authorities, Kuda v. Poland [GC],
no. 30210/96, 92, ECHR 2000-XI). In considering whether a punishment
or treatment was degrading within the meaning of Article 3, the Court
will have regard to whether its object was to humiliate and debase the
person concerned and whether, as far as the consequences are concerned, it
adversely affected his or her personality in a manner incompatible with
Article 3. However, the absence of any such purpose cannot conclusively
rule out a finding of a violation of Article 3. In order for a punishment or
treatment associated with it to be inhuman or degrading, the suffering
or humiliation involved must go beyond that inevitable element of suffering
or humiliation connected with a given form of legitimate treatment or
punishment (see Ramirez Sanchez, cited above, 118-19).
128. Where a person is deprived of his liberty, the State must ensure that
he is detained under conditions which are compatible with respect for his
human dignity and that the manner and method of the execution of the
measure do not subject him to distress or hardship exceeding the
unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention (see Kuda, cited above,
92-94). Although Article 3 cannot be construed as laying down a general
obligation to release detainees on health grounds, it nonetheless imposes an
obligation on the State to protect the physical and mental well-being of
persons deprived of their liberty, for example by providing them with the
requisite medical assistance (see Hurtado v. Switzerland, 28 January 1994,
Series A no. 280-A, opinion of the Commission, 79; Mouisel v. France,
no. 67263/01, 40, ECHR 2002-IX; Aerts v. Belgium, 30 July 1998, 66,
Reports 1998-V; and Keenan v. the United Kingdom, no. 27229/95, 111,
ECHR 2001-III). When assessing conditions of detention, account has to be
taken of the cumulative effects of those conditions, as well as the specific
allegations made by the applicant (see Ramirez Sanchez, cited above,
119). The imposition of an irreducible life sentence on an adult, without
any prospect of release, may raise an issue under Article 3, but where
national law affords the possibility of review of a life sentence with a view
to its commutation, remission, termination or the conditional release of the
prisoner, this will be sufficient (see Kafkaris, cited above, 97-98).
(b) Application to the facts of the present case
129. The Court notes that three of the applicants were held for
approximately three years and three months while the others were held for
shorter periods. During a large part of that detention, the applicants could
not have foreseen when, if ever, they would be released. They refer to the
56
findings of the Joint Psychiatric Report and contend that the indefinite
nature of their detention caused or exacerbated serious mental health
problems in each of them. The Government dispute this conclusion and rely
on Dr J.s report, which criticised the methodology of the authors of the
Joint Report (see paragraphs 76-77 above).
130. The Court considers that the uncertainty regarding their position
and the fear of indefinite detention must, undoubtedly, have caused the
applicants great anxiety and distress, as it would virtually any detainee in
their position. Furthermore, it is probable that the stress was sufficiently
serious and enduring to affect the mental health of certain of the applicants.
This is one of the factors which the Court must take into account when
assessing whether the threshold of Article 3 was attained.
131. It cannot, however, be said that the applicants were without any
prospect or hope of release (see Kafkaris, cited above, 98). In particular,
they were able to bring proceedings to challenge the legality of the detention
scheme under the 2001 Act and were successful before SIAC on 30 July
2002, and before the House of Lords on 16 December 2004. In addition,
each applicant was able to bring an individual challenge to the decision to
certify him and SIAC was required by statute to review the continuing case
for detention every six months. The Court does not, therefore, consider that
the applicants situation was comparable to an irreducible life sentence, of
the type designated in the Kafkaris judgment as capable of giving rise to an
issue under Article 3.
132. The applicants further contend that the conditions in which they
were held contributed towards an intolerable level of suffering. The Court
notes in this respect that the Joint Psychiatric Report also contained
criticisms of the prison health-care system and concluded that there was
inadequate provision for the applicants complex health problems. These
concerns were echoed by the CPT, which made detailed allegations about
the conditions of detention and concluded that for some of the applicants,
their situation at the time of the visit could be considered as amounting to
inhuman and degrading treatment. The Government strongly disputed
these criticisms in their response to the CPTs report (see paragraphs 101102 above).
133. The Court observes that each detained applicant had at his disposal
the remedies available to all prisoners under administrative and civil law to
challenge conditions of detention, including any alleged inadequacy of
medical treatment. The applicants did not attempt to make use of these
remedies and did not therefore comply with the requirement under
Article 35 of the Convention to exhaust domestic remedies. It follows that
the Court cannot examine the applicants complaints about their conditions
of detention; nor can it, in consequence, take the conditions of detention into
account in forming a global assessment of the applicants treatment for the
purposes of Article 3.
57
134. In all the above circumstances, the Court does not find that the
detention of the applicants reached the high threshold of inhuman and
degrading treatment.
135. The applicants also complained that they did not have effective
domestic remedies for their Article 3 complaints, in breach of Article 13. In
this connection, the Court repeats its above finding that civil and
administrative law remedies were available to the applicants had they
wished to complain about their conditions of detention. As for the more
fundamental aspect of the complaints, that the very nature of the detention
scheme in Part 4 of the 2001 Act gave rise to a breach of Article 3, the
Court reiterates that Article 13 does not guarantee a remedy allowing a
challenge to primary legislation before a national authority on the ground of
being contrary to the Convention (see James and Others v. the United
Kingdom, 21 February 1986, 85, Series A no. 98, and Roche v. the United
Kingdom [GC], no. 32555/96, 137, ECHR 2005-X).
136. In conclusion, therefore, the Court does not find a violation of
Article 3, taken alone or in conjunction with Article 13.
II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 5 1 OF THE CONVENTION
137. The applicants contended that their detention was unlawful and
incompatible with Article 5 1 of the Convention.
138. In their first set of written observations, following the
communication of the application by the Chamber, the Government
indicated that they would not seek to raise the question of derogation under
Article 15 of the Convention as a defence to the claim based on Article 5
1, but would leave that point as determined against them by the House of
Lords. Instead, they intended to focus their argument on the defence that the
applicants were lawfully detained with a view to deportation, within the
meaning of Article 5 1 (f).
However, in their written observations to the Grand Chamber, dated
11 February 2008, the Government indicated for the first time that they
wished to argue that the applicants detention did not in any event give rise
to a violation of Article 5 1 because the United Kingdoms derogation
under Article 15 was valid.
139. Article 5 1 of the Convention provides, in so far as relevant:
1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be
deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure
prescribed by law:
...
(f) the lawful arrest or detention of a person ... against whom action is being taken
with a view to deportation or extradition.
Article 15 of the Convention states:
58
1. In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any
High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under [the]
Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided
that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international
law.
2. No derogation from Article 2, except in respect of deaths resulting from lawful
acts of war, or from Articles 3, 4 (paragraph 1) and 7 shall be made under this
provision.
3. Any High Contracting Party availing itself of this right of derogation shall keep
the Secretary General of the Council of Europe fully informed of the measures which
it has taken and the reasons therefore. It shall also inform the Secretary General of the
Council of Europe when such measures have ceased to operate and the provisions of
the Convention are again being fully executed.

1. The applicants
140. The applicants objected that before the domestic courts the
Government had not sought to argue that they were detained as person[s]
against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or
extradition, but had instead relied on the derogation under Article 15. In
these circumstances, the applicants contended that it was abusive and
contrary to the principle of subsidiarity for the Government to raise a novel
argument before the Court and that they should be stopped from so doing.
141. In the event that the Court considered that it could entertain the
Governments submission, the applicants emphasised that the guarantee in
Article 5 was of fundamental importance and exceptions had to be strictly
construed. Where, as in their case, deportation was not possible because of
the risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 in the receiving country, Article 5
1 (f) would not authorise detention, irrespective of whether the individual
posed a risk to national security. Merely keeping the possibility of
deportation under review was not action ... being taken with a view to
deportation; it was action, unrelated to any extant deportation proceedings,
that might make the deportation a possibility in the future. Detention
pursuant to such vague and non-specific action would be arbitrary.
Moreover, it was clear that during the periods when the applicants cases
were being considered by SIAC on appeal (July 2002-October 2003), the
Governments position was that they could not be deported compatibly with
Article 3 and that no negotiations to effect deportation should be attempted
with the proposed receiving States. As a matter of fact, therefore, the
Government were not keeping the possibility of deporting the applicants
under active review.
142. The applicants further contended that it was abusive of the
Government, so late in the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, to
challenge the House of Lords decision quashing the derogation. In the
59
applicants view, it would be inconsistent with Article 19 and the principle

of subsidiarity for the Court to be asked by a Government to review alleged
errors of fact or law committed by that Governments own national courts.
The Governments approach in challenging the findings of its own Supreme
Court about legislation which Parliament had chosen to repeal aimed to
limit the human rights recognised under domestic law and was thus in
conflict with Article 53 of the Convention. Since the legislation had been
revoked and the derogation withdrawn, the Government were in effect
seeking to obtain from the Court an advisory opinion to be relied on
potentially at some later stage. To allow the Government to proceed would
impact substantially on the right of individual petition under Article 34 by
deterring applicants from making complaints for fear that governments
would try to upset the decisions of their own Supreme Courts.
143. In the event that the Court decided to review the legality of the
derogation, the applicants contended that the Government should not be
permitted to rely on arguments which they had not advanced before the
domestic courts. These included, firstly, the contention that it was justifiable
to detain non-national terrorist suspects while excluding nationals from such
measures, because of the interest in cultivating loyalty among Muslim
citizens, rather than exposing them to the threat of detention and the risk
that they would thereby become radicalised and, secondly, the argument that
the use of detention powers against foreign nationals freed up law
enforcement resources to concentrate on United Kingdom nationals (see
paragraph 151 below). Since the Government were seeking to introduce
these justifications for the derogation which were never advanced before the
domestic courts, the Court was being asked to act as a first-instance tribunal
on highly controversial matters.
144. Again, if the Court decided to examine the legality of the
derogation, there was no reason to give special deference to the findings of
the national courts on the question whether there was an emergency within
the meaning of Article 15. In the applicants submission, there were no
judicial precedents for recognising that an inchoate fear of a terrorist attack,
which was not declared to be imminent, was sufficient. All the examples in
the Convention jurisprudence related to derogations introduced to combat
ongoing terrorism which quite clearly jeopardised the entire infrastructure
of Northern Ireland or south-east Turkey. The domestic authorities were
wrong in interpreting Article 15 as permitting a derogation where the threat
was not necessarily directed at the United Kingdom but instead at other
nations to which it was allied.
145. In any event, the enactment of Part 4 of the 2001 Act and the power
contained therein to detain foreign nationals indeterminately without charge
was not strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, as the House
of Lords found. The impugned measures were not rationally connected to
the need to prevent a terrorist attack on the United Kingdom and they
60
involved unjustifiable discrimination on grounds of nationality. SIAC

which saw both the closed and open material on the point concluded that
there was ample evidence that British citizens posed a very significant
threat. There could be no grounds for holding that the fundamental right of
liberty was less important for a non-national than a national. Aliens enjoyed
a right of equal treatment outside the context of immigration and political
activity, as a matter of well-established domestic, Convention and public
international law. There were other, less intrusive, measures which could
have been used to address the threat: for example, the use of control orders
as created by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005; the creation of
additional criminal offences to permit for the prosecution of individuals
engaged in preparatory terrorist activity; or the lifting of the ban on the use
of material obtained by the interception of communications in criminal
proceedings.
2. The Government
146. The Government contended that States have a fundamental right
under international law to control the entry, residence and expulsion of
aliens. Clear language would be required to justify the conclusion that the
Contracting States intended through the Convention to give up their ability
to protect themselves against a risk to national security created by a nonnational. As a matter of ordinary language, action being taken with a view
to deportation covered the situation where a Contracting State wished to
deport an alien, actively kept that possibility under review and only
refrained from doing so because of contingent, extraneous circumstances. In
Chahal v. the United Kingdom (15 November 1996, Reports 1996-V), a
period of detention of over six years, including over three years where the
applicant could not be removed because of an interim measure requested by
the Commission, was held to be acceptable under Article 5 1 (f).
147. Each applicant was served a notice of intention to deport at the
same time as he was certified under the 2001 Act. The second and fourth
applicants elected to go to Morocco and France respectively, and were
allowed to leave the United Kingdom as soon as could be arranged, so no
issue could arise under Article 5 1 in their respect. The possibility of
deporting the other applicants was kept under active review throughout the
period of their detention. This involved monitoring the situation in their
countries of origin. Further, from the end of 2003 onwards the Government
were in negotiation with the governments of Algeria and Jordan, with a
view to entering into memoranda of understanding that the applicants who
were nationals of those countries would not be ill-treated if returned.
148. The Government relied on the principle of fair balance, which
underlies the whole Convention, and reasoned that sub-paragraph (f) of
Article 5 1 had to be interpreted so as to strike a balance between the
interests of the individual and the interests of the State in protecting its
61
population from malevolent aliens. Detention struck that balance by

advancing the legitimate aim of the State to secure the protection of the
population without sacrificing the predominant interest of the alien to avoid
being returned to a place where he faced torture or death. The fair balance
was further preserved by providing the alien with adequate safeguards
against the arbitrary exercise of the detention powers in national security
cases.
149. In the alternative, the detention of the applicants was not in breach
of the Convention because of the derogation under Article 15. There was a
public emergency threatening the life of the nation at the relevant time. That
assessment was subjected to full scrutiny by the domestic courts. The
evidence in support, both open and closed, was examined by SIAC in detail,
with the benefit of oral hearings at which witnesses were cross-examined.
SIAC unanimously upheld the Governments assessment, as did the
unanimous Court of Appeal and eight of the nine judges in the House of
Lords. In the light of the margin of appreciation to be afforded to the
national authorities on this question, there was no proper basis on which the
Court could reach a different conclusion.
150. The Government explained that they accorded very great respect to
the House of Lords decision and declaration of incompatibility and that
they had repealed the offending legislation. Nonetheless, when the decision
was made to refer the case to the Grand Chamber, they decided that it was
necessary to challenge the House of Lords reasoning and conclusions,
bearing in mind the wide constitutional importance of the issue and the
ongoing need for Contracting States to have clear guidance from the Grand
Chamber as to the measures they might legitimately take to try to prevent
the terrorist threat from materialising. They submitted that the House of
Lords had erred in affording the State too narrow a margin of appreciation
in assessing what measures were strictly necessary; in this connection it was
relevant to note that Part 4 of the 2001 Act was not only the product of the
judgment of the Government but was also the subject of debate in
Parliament. Furthermore, the domestic courts had examined the legislation
in the abstract, rather than considering the applicants concrete cases,
including the impossibility of removing them, the threat each posed to
national security, the inadequacy of enhanced surveillance or other controls
short of detention and the procedural safeguards afforded to each applicant.
151. Finally, the House of Lords conclusion had turned not on a
rejection of the necessity to detain the applicants but instead on the absence
of a legislative power to detain also a national who posed a risk to national
security and was suspected of being an international terrorist. However,
there were good reasons for detaining only non-nationals and the
Convention expressly and impliedly recognised that distinction was
permissible between nationals and non-nationals in the field of immigration.
The primary measure which the Government wished to take against the
62
applicants was deportation, a measure permitted against a non-national but

not a national. The analogy drawn by the House of Lords between
foreigners [such as the applicants] who cannot be deported and British
nationals who cannot be deported was false, because the applicants at the
time of their detention were not irremovable in the same way that a British
citizen is irremovable. Furthermore, at the relevant time the Governments
assessment was that the greater risk emanated from non-nationals and it was
legitimate for a State, when dealing with a national emergency, to proceed
on a step-by-step basis and aim to neutralise what was perceived as the
greatest threat first, thereby also freeing resources to deal with the lesser
threat coming from British citizens. In addition, it was reasonable for the
State to take into account the sensitivities of its Muslim population in order
to reduce the chances of recruitment among them by extremists.
3. The third party, Liberty
152. Liberty (see paragraph 6 above) submitted that, by reserving before
the domestic courts the issue whether the detention was compatible with
Article 5 1, the Government had deprived the Court of the benefit of the
views of the House of Lords and had pursued a course of action which
would not be open to an applicant. In any event, the detention did not fall
within the exception in Article 5 1 (f), since Part 4 of the 2001 Act
permitted indefinite detention and since there was no tangible expectation of
being able to deport the applicants during the relevant time. If the
Government were unable to remove the applicants because of their Article 3
rights, they could not properly rely on national security concerns as a basis
for diluting or modifying their Article 5 rights. Instead, the proper course
was either to derogate from Article 5 to the extent strictly required by the
situation or to prosecute the individuals concerned with one of the plethora
of criminal terrorist offences on the United Kingdoms statute books, which
included professed membership of a proscribed organisation, failure to
notify the authorities of suspected terrorist activity, possession of
incriminating articles and indirect encouragement to commit, prepare or
instigate acts of terrorism (see paragraphs 89 and 95 above).
1. The scope of the case before the Court
153. The Court must start by determining the applicants first
preliminary objection, according to which the Government should be
precluded from raising a defence to the complaints under Article 5 1 based
on the exception in sub-paragraph 5 1 (f), on the ground that they did not
pursue it before the domestic courts.
63
154. The Court is intended to be subsidiary to the national systems

safeguarding human rights. It is, therefore, appropriate that the national
courts should initially have the opportunity to determine questions of the
compatibility of domestic law with the Convention and that, if an
application is nonetheless subsequently brought before the Court, it should
have the benefit of the views of the national courts, as being in direct and
continuous contact with the forces of their countries (see Burden v. the
United Kingdom [GC], no. 13378/05, 42, ECHR 2008). It is thus of
importance that the arguments put by the Government before the national
courts should be on the same lines as those put before this Court. In
particular, it is not open to a Government to put to the Court arguments
which are inconsistent with the position they adopted before the national
courts (see, mutatis mutandis, Pine Valley Developments Ltd and Others v.
Ireland, 29 November 1991, 47, Series A no. 222, and Kolompar v.
Belgium, 24 September 1992, 31-32, Series A no. 235-C).
155. The Court does not, however, consider that the Government are
estopped from seeking to rely on sub-paragraph (f) of Article 5 1 to justify
the detention. It is clear that the Government expressly kept open, in the text
of the derogation and during the derogation proceedings before the domestic
courts, the question of the application of Article 5. Moreover, the majority
of the House of Lords either explicitly or impliedly considered whether the
detention was compatible with Article 5 1 before assessing the validity of
the derogation (see paragraph 17 above).
156. The applicants further contended that the Government should not
be permitted to dispute before the Court the House of Lords finding that the
derogation was invalid.
157. The present situation is, undoubtedly, unusual in that Governments
do not normally resort to challenging, nor see any need to contest, decisions
of their own highest courts before this Court. There is not, however, any
prohibition on a Government making such a challenge, particularly if they
consider that the national Supreme Courts ruling is problematic under the
Convention and that further guidance is required from the Court.
158. In the present case, because a declaration of incompatibility under
the Human Rights Act 1998 is not binding on the parties to the domestic
litigation (see paragraph 94 above), the applicants success in the House of
Lords led neither to their immediate release nor to the payment of
compensation for unlawful detention and it was therefore necessary for
them to lodge the present application. The Court does not consider that there
is any reason of principle why, since the applicants have requested it to
examine the lawfulness of their detention, the Government should not now
have the chance to raise all the arguments open to them to defend the
proceedings, even if this involves calling into question the conclusion of
their own Supreme Court.
64
159. The Court therefore dismisses the applicants two preliminary

objections.
2. Admissibility
160. The Court considers that the applicants complaints under Article 5
1 of the Convention raise complex issues of law and fact, the
determination of which should depend on an examination of the merits. It
concludes, therefore, that this part of the application is not manifestly illfounded within the meaning of Article 35 3 of the Convention. No other
ground of inadmissibility has been raised and it must be declared
admissible.
3. The merits
161. The Court must first ascertain whether the applicants detention
was permissible under Article 5 1 (f), because if that sub-paragraph does
provide a defence to the complaints under Article 5 1, it will not be
necessary to determine whether or not the derogation was valid (see Ireland
v. the United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, 191, Series A no. 25).
(a) Whether the applicants were lawfully detained in accordance with
Article 5 1 (f) of the Convention
162. Article 5 enshrines a fundamental human right, namely the

protection of the individual against arbitrary interference by the State with
his or her right to liberty (see Aksoy v. Turkey, 18 December 1996, 76,
Reports 1996-VI). The text of Article 5 makes it clear that the guarantees it
contains apply to everyone.
163. Sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) of Article 5 1 contain an exhaustive list
of permissible grounds on which persons may be deprived of their liberty
and no deprivation of liberty will be lawful unless it falls within one of
those grounds (see Saadi v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 13229/03, 43,
ECHR 2008). One of the exceptions, contained in sub-paragraph (f), permits
the State to control the liberty of aliens in an immigration context (ibid.,
64). The Government contend that the applicants detention was justified
under the second limb of that sub-paragraph and that they were lawfully
detained as persons against whom action is being taken with a view to
deportation or extradition.
164. Article 5 1 (f) does not demand that detention be reasonably
considered necessary, for example to prevent the individual from
committing an offence or fleeing. Any deprivation of liberty under the
second limb of Article 5 1 (f) will be justified, however, only for as long
as deportation or extradition proceedings are in progress. If such
proceedings are not prosecuted with due diligence, the detention will cease
to be permissible under Article 5 1 (f) (see Chahal, cited above, 113).
65
The deprivation of liberty must also be lawful. Where the lawfulness of

detention is in issue, including the question whether a procedure prescribed
by law has been followed, the Convention refers essentially to national law
and lays down the obligation to conform to the substantive and procedural
rules of national law. Compliance with national law is not, however,
sufficient: Article 5 1 requires in addition that any deprivation of liberty
should be in keeping with the purpose of protecting the individual from
arbitrariness. It is a fundamental principle that no detention which is
arbitrary can be compatible with Article 5 1 and the notion of
arbitrariness in Article 5 1 extends beyond lack of conformity with
national law, so that a deprivation of liberty may be lawful in terms of
domestic law but still arbitrary and thus contrary to the Convention (see
Saadi, cited above, 67). To avoid being branded as arbitrary, detention
under Article 5 1 (f) must be carried out in good faith; it must be closely
connected to the ground of detention relied on by the Government; the place
and conditions of detention should be appropriate; and the length of the
detention should not exceed that reasonably required for the purpose
pursued (see, mutatis mutandis, Saadi, cited above, 74).
165. The first, third, and sixth applicants were taken into detention under
the 2001 Act on 19 December 2001; the seventh applicant was detained on
9 February 2002; the eighth applicant on 23 October 2002; the ninth
applicant on 22 April 2002; the tenth applicant on 14 January 2003; and the
eleventh applicant on 2 October 2003. None of these applicants was
released until 10-11 March 2005. The fifth applicant was detained between
19 December 2001 and 22 April 2004, when he was released on bail subject
to stringent conditions. The second and fourth applicants were also detained
on 19 December 2001 but the second applicant was released on
22 December 2001, following his decision to return to Morocco, and the
fourth applicant was released on 13 March 2002, following his decision to
go to France. The applicants were held throughout in high security
conditions at either Belmarsh or Woodhill Prisons or Broadmoor Secure
Mental Hospital. It cannot, therefore, be disputed that they were deprived of
their liberty within the meaning of Article 5 1 (see Engel and Others v. the
Netherlands, 8 June 1976, Series A no. 22).
166. The applicants were foreign nationals whom the Government
would have deported from the United Kingdom had it been possible to find
a State to receive them where they would not face a real risk of being
subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention (see Saadi v.
Italy [GC], no. 37201/06, 125 and 127, ECHR 2008). Although the
respondent States obligations under Article 3 prevented the removal of the
applicants from the United Kingdom, the Secretary of State nonetheless
considered it necessary to detain them for security reasons, because he
believed that their presence in the country was a risk to national security and
suspected that they were or had been concerned in the commission,
66
preparation or instigation of acts of international terrorism and were

members of, belonged to or had links with an international terrorist group.
Such detention would have been unlawful under domestic law prior to the
passing of Part 4 of the 2001 Act, since the 1984 judgment in Hardial Singh
entailed that the power of detention could not be exercised unless the person
subject to the deportation order could be deported within a reasonable time
(see paragraph 87 above). Thus, it was stated in the derogation notice
lodged under Article 15 of the Convention that extended powers were
required to arrest and detain a foreign national where removal or
deportation is not for the time being possible, with the consequence that the
detention would be unlawful under existing domestic-law powers (see
paragraph 11 above).
167. One of the principal assumptions underlying the derogation notice,
the 2001 Act and the decision to detain the applicants was, therefore, that
they could not be removed or deported for the time being (see
paragraphs 11 and 90 above). There is no evidence that during the period of
the applicants detention there was, except in respect of the second and
fourth applicants, any realistic prospect of their being expelled without this
giving rise to a real risk of ill-treatment contrary to Article 3. Indeed, the
first applicant is stateless and the Government have not produced any
evidence to suggest that there was another State willing to accept him. It
does not appear that the Government entered into negotiations with Algeria
or Jordan, with a view to seeking assurances that the applicants who were
nationals of those States would not be ill-treated if returned, until the end of
2003 and no such assurance was received until August 2005 (see
paragraph 86 above). In these circumstances, the Court does not consider
that the respondent Governments policy of keeping the possibility of
deporting the applicants under active review was sufficiently certain or
determinative to amount to action ... being taken with a view to
deportation.
168. The exceptions to this conclusion were the second applicant, who
was detained for only three days prior to his return to Morocco, and the
fourth applicant, who left the United Kingdom for France on 13 March
2002, having been detained for just under three months (see paragraphs 35
and 41 above). The Court considers that during these periods of detention it
could reasonably be said that action was being taken against these
applicants with a view to deportation, in that it appears that the authorities
were still at that stage in the course of establishing their nationalities and
investigating whether their removal to their countries of origin or to other
countries would be possible (see Gebremedhin [Gaberamadhien] v. France,
no. 25389/05, 74, ECHR 2007-II). Accordingly, there has been no
violation of Article 5 1 of the Convention in respect of the second and
fourth applicants.
67
169. It is true that even the applicants who were detained the longest
were not held for as long as the applicant in Chahal (cited above), where the
Court found no violation of Article 5 1 despite his imprisonment for over
six years. However, in the Chahal case, throughout the entire period of the
detention, proceedings were being actively and diligently pursued, before
the domestic authorities and the Court, in order to determine whether it
would be lawful and compatible with Article 3 of the Convention to proceed
with the applicants deportation to India. The same cannot be said in the
present case, where the proceedings have, instead, been primarily concerned
with the legality of the detention.
170. In the circumstances of the present case it cannot be said that the
first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh applicants
were persons against whom action [was] being taken with a view to
deportation or extradition. Their detention did not, therefore, fall within the
exception to the right to liberty set out in Article 5 1 (f) of the Convention.
This is a conclusion which was also, expressly or impliedly, reached by a
majority of the members of the House of Lords (see paragraph 17 above).
171. It is, instead, clear from the terms of the derogation notice and
Part 4 of the 2001 Act that the applicants were certified and detained
because they were suspected of being international terrorists and because it
was believed that their presence at liberty in the United Kingdom gave rise
to a threat to national security. The Court does not accept the Governments
argument that Article 5 1 permits a balance to be struck between the
individuals right to liberty and the States interest in protecting its
population from terrorist threat. This argument is inconsistent not only with
the Courts jurisprudence under sub-paragraph (f) but also with the principle
that sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) amount to an exhaustive list of exceptions and
that only a narrow interpretation of these exceptions is compatible with the
aims of Article 5. If detention does not fit within the confines of the subparagraphs as interpreted by the Court, it cannot be made to fit by an appeal
to the need to balance the interests of the State against those of the detainee.
172. The Court reiterates that it has, on a number of occasions, found
internment and preventive detention without charge to be incompatible with
the fundamental right to liberty under Article 5 1, in the absence of a valid
derogation under Article 15 (see Lawless v. Ireland (no. 3), 1 July 1961,
pp. 34-36, 13-14, Series A no. 3, and Ireland v. the United Kingdom,
cited above, 194-96 and 212-13). It must now, therefore, consider
whether the United Kingdoms derogation was valid.
68
(b) Whether the United Kingdom validly derogated from its obligations under
Article 5 1 of the Convention
(i) The Courts approach
173. The Court reiterates that it falls to each Contracting State, with its
responsibility for the life of [its] nation, to determine whether that life is
threatened by a public emergency and, if so, how far it is necessary to go
in attempting to overcome the emergency. By reason of their direct and
continuous contact with the pressing needs of the moment, the national
authorities are in principle better placed than the international judge to
decide both on the presence of such an emergency and on the nature and
scope of the derogations necessary to avert it. Accordingly, in this matter a
wide margin of appreciation should be left to the national authorities.
Nonetheless, Contracting Parties do not enjoy an unlimited discretion. It
is for the Court to rule whether, inter alia, the States have gone beyond the
extent strictly required by the exigencies of the crisis. The domestic
margin of appreciation is thus accompanied by a European supervision. In
exercising this supervision, the Court must give appropriate weight to such
relevant factors as the nature of the rights affected by the derogation and the
circumstances leading to, and the duration of, the emergency situation (see
Ireland v. the United Kingdom, cited above, 207; Brannigan and McBride
v. the United Kingdom, 26 May 1993, 43, Series A no. 258-B; and Aksoy,
cited above, 68).
174. The object and purpose underlying the Convention, as set out in
Article 1, is that the rights and freedoms should be secured by the
Contracting State within its jurisdiction. It is fundamental to the machinery
of protection established by the Convention that the national systems
themselves provide redress for breaches of its provisions, with the Court
exercising a supervisory role subject to the principle of subsidiarity (see Z
and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 29392/95, 103, ECHR
2001-V). Moreover, the domestic courts are part of the national
authorities to which the Court affords a wide margin of appreciation under
Article 15. In the unusual circumstances of the present case, where the
highest domestic court has examined the issues relating to the States
derogation and concluded that there was a public emergency threatening the
life of the nation but that the measures taken in response were not strictly
required by the exigencies of the situation, the Court considers that it would
be justified in reaching a contrary conclusion only if satisfied that the
national court had misinterpreted or misapplied Article 15 or the Courts
jurisprudence under that Article or reached a conclusion which was
manifestly unreasonable.
69
(ii) Whether there was a public emergency threatening the life of the nation
175. The applicants argued that there had been no public emergency
threatening the life of the British nation, for three main reasons: firstly, the
emergency was neither actual nor imminent; secondly, it was not of a
temporary nature; and, thirdly, the practice of other States, none of which
had derogated from the Convention, together with the informed views of
other national and international bodies, suggested that the existence of a
public emergency had not been established.
176. The Court reiterates that in Lawless (cited above, 28), it held that
in the context of Article 15 the natural and customary meaning of the words
other public emergency threatening the life of the nation was sufficiently
clear and that they referred to an exceptional situation of crisis or
emergency which affects the whole population and constitutes a threat to the
organised life of the community of which the State is composed. In the
Greek case (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands v. Greece,
nos. 3321/67, 3322/67, 3323/67 and 3344/67, Commissions report of
5 November 1969, Yearbook 12, p. 70, 113), the Commission held that, in
order to justify a derogation, the emergency should be actual or imminent;
that it should affect the whole nation to the extent that the continuance of
the organised life of the community was threatened; and that the crisis or
danger should be exceptional, in that the normal measures or restrictions,
permitted by the Convention for the maintenance of public safety, health
and order, were plainly inadequate. In Ireland v. the United Kingdom (cited
above, 205 and 212), the parties were agreed, as were the Commission
and the Court, that the Article 15 test was satisfied, since terrorism had for a
number of years represented a particularly far-reaching and acute danger
for the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, the institutions of the six
counties and the lives of the provinces inhabitants. The Court reached
similar conclusions as regards the continuing security situation in Northern
Ireland in Brannigan and McBride (cited above) and Marshall v. the United
Kingdom ((dec.), no. 41571/98, 10 July 2001). In Aksoy (cited above), it
accepted that Kurdish separatist violence had given rise to a public
emergency in Turkey.
177. Before the domestic courts, the Secretary of State adduced evidence
to show the existence of a threat of serious terrorist attacks planned against
the United Kingdom. Additional closed evidence was adduced before SIAC.
All the national judges accepted that the danger was credible (with the
exception of Lord Hoffmann, who did not consider that it was of a nature to
constitute a threat to the life of the nation see paragraph 18 above).
Although when the derogation was made no al-Qaeda attack had taken place
within the territory of the United Kingdom, the Court does not consider that
the national authorities can be criticised, in the light of the evidence
available to them at the time, for fearing that such an attack was
imminent, in that an atrocity might be committed without warning at any
70
time. The requirement of imminence cannot be interpreted so narrowly as to

require a State to wait for disaster to strike before taking measures to deal
with it. Moreover, the danger of a terrorist attack was, tragically, shown by
the bombings and attempted bombings in London in July 2005 to have been
very real. Since the purpose of Article 15 is to permit States to take
derogating measures to protect their populations from future risks, the
existence of the threat to the life of the nation must be assessed primarily
with reference to those facts which were known at the time of the
derogation. The Court is not precluded, however, from having regard to
information which comes to light subsequently (see, mutatis mutandis,
Vilvarajah and Others v. the United Kingdom, 30 October 1991, 107(2),
Series A no. 215).
178. While the United Nations Human Rights Committee has observed
that measures derogating from the provisions of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights must be of an exceptional and temporary
nature (see paragraph 110 above), the Courts case-law has never, to date,
explicitly incorporated the requirement that the emergency be temporary,
although the question of the proportionality of the response may be linked
to the duration of the emergency. Indeed, the cases cited above, relating to
the security situation in Northern Ireland, demonstrate that it is possible for
a public emergency within the meaning of Article 15 to continue for many
years. The Court does not consider that derogating measures put in place in
the immediate aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States of
America, and reviewed on an annual basis by Parliament, can be said to be
invalid on the ground that they were not temporary.
179. The applicants argument that the life of the nation was not
threatened is principally founded on the dissenting opinion of Lord
Hoffman, who interpreted the words as requiring a threat to the organised
life of the community which went beyond a threat of serious physical
damage and loss of life. It had, in his view, to threaten our institutions of
government or our existence as a civil community (see paragraph 18
above). However, the Court has in previous cases been prepared to take into
account a much broader range of factors in determining the nature and
degree of the actual or imminent threat to the nation and has in the past
concluded that emergency situations have existed even though the
institutions of the State did not appear to be imperilled to the extent
envisaged by Lord Hoffman.
180. As previously stated, the national authorities enjoy a wide margin
of appreciation under Article 15 in assessing whether the life of their nation
is threatened by a public emergency. While it is striking that the United
Kingdom was the only Convention State to have lodged a derogation in
response to the danger from al-Qaeda, although other States were also the
subject of threats, the Court accepts that it was for each Government, as the
guardian of their own peoples safety, to make their own assessment on the
71
basis of the facts known to them. Weight must, therefore, attach to the
judgment of the United Kingdoms executive and Parliament on this
question. In addition, significant weight must be accorded to the views of
the national courts, which were better placed to assess the evidence relating
to the existence of an emergency.
181. On this first question, the Court accordingly shares the view of the
majority of the House of Lords that there was a public emergency
threatening the life of the nation.
(iii) Whether the measures were strictly required by the exigencies of the
situation
182. Article 15 provides that the State may take measures derogating
from its obligations under the Convention only to the extent strictly
required by the exigencies of the situation. As previously stated, the Court
considers that it should in principle follow the judgment of the House of
Lords on the question of the proportionality of the applicants detention,
unless it can be shown that the national court misinterpreted the Convention
or the Courts case-law or reached a conclusion which was manifestly
unreasonable. It will consider the Governments challenges to the House of
Lords judgment against this background.
183. The Government contended, firstly, that the majority of the House
of Lords should have afforded a much wider margin of appreciation to the
executive and Parliament to decide whether the applicants detention was
necessary. A similar argument was advanced before the House of Lords,
where the Attorney-General submitted that the assessment of what was
needed to protect the public was a matter of political rather than judicial
judgment (see paragraph 19 above).
184. When the Court comes to consider a derogation under Article 15, it
allows the national authorities a wide margin of appreciation to decide on
the nature and scope of the derogating measures necessary to avert the
emergency. Nonetheless, it is ultimately for the Court to rule whether the
measures were strictly required. In particular, where a derogating measure
encroaches upon a fundamental Convention right, such as the right to
liberty, the Court must be satisfied that it was a genuine response to the
emergency situation, that it was fully justified by the special circumstances
of the emergency and that adequate safeguards were provided against abuse
(see, for example, Brannigan and McBride, cited above, 48-66; Aksoy,
cited above, 71-84; and the principles outlined in paragraph 173 above).
The doctrine of the margin of appreciation has always been meant as a tool
to define relations between the domestic authorities and the Court. It cannot
have the same application to the relations between the organs of State at the
domestic level. As the House of Lords held, the question of proportionality
is ultimately a judicial decision, particularly in a case such as the present
where the applicants were deprived of their fundamental right to liberty over
72
a long period of time. In any event, having regard to the careful way in
which the House of Lords approached the issues, it cannot be said that
inadequate weight was given to the views of the executive or of Parliament.
185. The Government also submitted that the House of Lords erred in
examining the legislation in the abstract rather than considering the
applicants concrete cases. However, in the Courts view, the approach
under Article 15 is necessarily focused on the general situation pertaining in
the country concerned, in the sense that the court whether national or
international is required to examine the measures that have been adopted
in derogation of the Convention rights in question and to weigh them
against the nature of the threat to the nation posed by the emergency.
Where, as here, the measures are found to be disproportionate to that threat
and to be discriminatory in their effect, there is no need to go further and
examine their application in the concrete case of each applicant.
186. The Governments third ground of challenge to the House of Lords
decision was directed principally at the approach taken towards the
comparison between non-national and national suspected terrorists. The
Court, however, considers that the House of Lords was correct in holding
that the impugned powers were not to be seen as immigration measures,
where a distinction between nationals and non-nationals would be
legitimate, but instead as concerned with national security. Part 4 of the
2001 Act was designed to avert a real and imminent threat of terrorist attack
which, on the evidence, was posed by both nationals and non-nationals. The
choice by the Government and Parliament of an immigration measure to
address what was essentially a security issue had the result of failing
adequately to address the problem, while imposing a disproportionate and
discriminatory burden of indefinite detention on one group of suspected
terrorists. As the House of Lords found, there was no significant difference
in the potential adverse impact of detention without charge on a national or
on a non-national who in practice could not leave the country because of
fear of torture abroad.
187. Finally, the Government advanced two arguments which the
applicants claimed had not been relied on before the national courts.
Certainly, there does not appear to be any reference to them in the national
courts judgments or in the open material which has been put before the
Court. In these circumstances, even assuming that the principle of
subsidiarity does not prevent the Court from examining new grounds, it
would require persuasive evidence in support of them.
188. The first of the allegedly new arguments was that it was legitimate
for the State, in confining the measures to non-nationals, to take into
account the sensitivities of the British Muslim population in order to reduce
the chances of recruitment among them by extremists. However, the
Government have not placed before the Court any evidence to suggest that
British Muslims were significantly more likely to react negatively to the
73
detention without charge of national rather than foreign Muslims reasonably

suspected of links to al-Qaeda. In this respect the Court notes that the
system of control orders, put in place by the Prevention of Terrorism Act
2005, does not discriminate between national and non-national suspects.
189. The second allegedly new ground relied on by the Government was
that the State could better respond to the terrorist threat if it were able to
detain its most serious source, namely non-nationals. In this connection,
again the Court has not been provided with any evidence which could
persuade it to overturn the conclusion of the House of Lords that the
difference in treatment was unjustified. Indeed, the Court notes that the
national courts, including SIAC, which saw both the open and the closed
material, were not convinced that the threat from non-nationals was more
serious than that from nationals.
190. In conclusion, therefore, the Court, like the House of Lords, and
contrary to the Governments contention, finds that the derogating measures
were disproportionate in that they discriminated unjustifiably between
nationals and non-nationals. It follows that there has been a violation of
Article 5 1 in respect of the first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth,
tenth and eleventh applicants.
III. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 5 1 OF THE
CONVENTION TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH ARTICLE 14
191. The applicants complained that it was discriminatory, and in breach
of Article 14 of the Convention, to detain them when United Kingdom
nationals suspected of involvement with al-Qaeda were left at liberty.
Article 14 provides:
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be
secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a
national minority, property, birth or other status.
192. In the light of its above reasoning and conclusion in relation to

Article 5 1 taken alone, the Court does not consider it necessary to
examine these complaints separately.
IV. ALLEGED VIOLATION
CONVENTION
OF
ARTICLE
OF
THE
193. The applicants contended that the procedure before the domestic
courts to challenge their detention did not comply with the requirements of
Article 5 4, which states:
Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to
take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily
by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful.
74
The Government denied that there had been a violation of Article 5 4.

1. The applicants
194. The applicants advanced two main arguments under Article 5 4.
Firstly, they emphasised that although it was open to them to argue before
SIAC, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords that their detention
under Part 4 of the 2001 Act was unlawful under the Convention, the only
remedy which they were able to obtain was a declaration of incompatibility
under the 1998 Act. This had no binding effect on the Government and the
detention remained lawful until legislative change was effected by
Parliament. There was thus no court with power to order their release, in
breach of Article 5 4.
195. Secondly, the applicants complained about the procedure before
SIAC for appeals under section 25 of the 2001 Act (see paragraph 91 above)
and in particular the lack of disclosure of material evidence except to special
advocates with whom the detained person was not permitted to consult. In
their submission, Article 5 4 imported the fair-trial guarantees of Article 6
1 commensurate with the gravity of the issue at stake. While in certain
circumstances it might be permissible for a court to sanction non-disclosure
of relevant evidence to an individual on grounds of national security, it
could never be permissible for a court assessing the lawfulness of detention
to rely on such material where it bore decisively on the case the detained
person had to meet and where it had not been disclosed, even in gist or
summary form, sufficiently to enable the individual to know the case
against him and to respond. In all the applicants appeals, except that of the
tenth applicant, SIAC relied on closed material and recognised that the
applicants were thereby put at a disadvantage.
2. The Government
196. The Government contended that Article 5 4 should be read in the
light of the Courts established jurisprudence under Article 13, of which it
was the lex specialis as regards detention, that there was no right to
challenge binding primary legislation before a national court. This principle,
together with the system of declarations of incompatibility under the Human
Rights Act 1998, reflected the democratic value of the supremacy of the
elected Parliament.
197. On the applicants second point, the Government submitted that
there were valid public-interest grounds for withholding the closed material.
The right to disclosure of evidence, under Article 6 and also under Article 5
4, was not absolute. The Courts case-law from Chahal (cited above)
onwards had indicated some support for a special-advocate procedure in
75
particularly sensitive fields. Moreover, in each applicants case, the open

material gave sufficient notice of the allegations against him to enable him
to mount an effective defence.
3. The third party, Justice
198. Justice (see paragraph 6 above) informed the Court that at the time
SIAC was created by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act
1997, the use of closed material and special advocates in the procedure
before it was believed to be based on a similar procedure in Canada, applied
in cases before the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which
considered whether a ministers decision to remove a permanently resident
foreign national on national security grounds was well-founded. However,
although the SIRC procedure involved in-house counsel with access to the
classified material taking part in ex parte and in camera hearings to
represent the appellants interests, it differed substantially from the SIAC
model, particularly in that it allowed the special advocate to maintain
contact with the appellant and his lawyers throughout the process and even
after the special advocate was fully apprised of the secret information
against the appellant.
199. In contrast, the SIAC procedures involving closed material and
special advocates had attracted considerable criticism, including from the
Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the House of Commons
Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on
Human Rights, the Canadian Senate Committee on the Anti-Terrorism Act,
and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Following the
judgment of the House of Lords in December 2004, declaring Part 4 of the
2001 Act incompatible with Articles 5 and 14 of the Convention, the House
of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee commenced an inquiry into
the operation of SIAC and its use of special advocates. Among the evidence
received by the Committee was a submission from nine of the thirteen
serving special advocates. In the submission, the special advocates
highlighted the serious difficulties they faced in representing appellants in
closed proceedings due to the prohibition on communication concerning the
closed material. In particular, the special advocates pointed to the very
limited role they were able to play in closed hearings given the absence of
effective instructions from those they represented.
1. Admissibility
200. The Court notes that Article 5 4 guarantees a right to everyone
who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention to bring proceedings to
test the legality of the detention and to obtain release if the detention is
76
found to be unlawful. Since the second and fourth applicants were already at
liberty, having elected to travel to Morocco and France respectively, by the
time the various proceedings to determine the lawfulness of the detention
under the 2001 Act were commenced, it follows that these two applicants
complaints under Article 5 4 are manifestly ill-founded within the
meaning of Article 35 3 of the Convention (see Fox, Campbell and
Hartley v. the United Kingdom, 30 August 1990, 45, Series A no. 182)
and must be declared inadmissible.
201. The Court considers that the other applicants complaints under this
provision raise complex issues of law and fact, the determination of which
should depend on an examination of the merits. It concludes, therefore, that
this part of the application is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning
of Article 35 3 of the Convention. No other ground of inadmissibility has
been raised and it must be declared admissible.
2. The merits
(a) The principles arising from the case-law
202. Article 5 4 provides a lex specialis in relation to the more general

requirements of Article 13 (see Chahal, cited above, 126). It entitles an
arrested or detained person to institute proceedings bearing on the
procedural and substantive conditions which are essential for the
lawfulness of his or her deprivation of liberty. The notion of lawfulness
under Article 5 4 has the same meaning as in 1, so that the arrested or
detained person is entitled to a review of the lawfulness of his detention in
the light not only of the requirements of domestic law but also of the
Convention, the general principles embodied therein and the aim of the
restrictions permitted by Article 5 1. Article 5 4 does not guarantee a
right to judicial review of such a scope as to empower the court, on all
aspects of the case including questions of pure expediency, to substitute its
own discretion for that of the decision-making authority. The review should,
however, be wide enough to bear on those conditions which are essential for
the lawful detention of a person according to Article 5 1 (see E. v.
Norway, 29 August 1990, 50, Series A no. 181-A). The reviewing court
must not have merely advisory functions but must have the competence to
decide the lawfulness of the detention and to order release if the
detention is unlawful (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, cited above,
200; Weeks v. the United Kingdom, 2 March 1987, 61, Series A no. 114;
and Chahal, cited above, 130).
203. The requirement of procedural fairness under Article 5 4 does not
impose a uniform, unvarying standard to be applied irrespective of the
context, facts and circumstances. Although it is not always necessary that an
Article 5 4 procedure be attended by the same guarantees as those
required under Article 6 for criminal or civil litigation, it must have a
77
judicial character and provide guarantees appropriate to the type of

deprivation of liberty in question (see, for example, Winterwerp v. the
Netherlands, 24 October 1979, 57, Series A no. 33; Bouamar v. Belgium,
29 February 1988, 57 and 60, Series A no. 129; Woch v. Poland,
no. 27785/95, 125, ECHR 2000-XI; and Reinprecht v. Austria,
no. 67175/01, 31, ECHR 2005-XII).
204. Thus, the proceedings must be adversarial and must always ensure
equality of arms between the parties (see Reinprecht, cited above, 31).
An oral hearing may be necessary, for example in cases of detention on
remand (see Nikolova v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 31195/96, 58, ECHR
1999-II). Moreover, in remand cases, since the persistence of a reasonable
suspicion that the accused person has committed an offence is a condition
sine qua non for the lawfulness of the continued detention, the detainee
must be given an opportunity effectively to challenge the basis of the
allegations against him (see Becciev v. Moldova, no. 9190/03, 68-72,
4 October 2005). This may require the court to hear witnesses whose
testimony appears prima facie to have a material bearing on the continuing
lawfulness of the detention (ibid., 72-76, and urcan v. Moldova,
no. 39835/05, 67-70, 23 October 2007). It may also require that the
detainee or his representative be given access to documents in the case file
which form the basis of the prosecution case against him (see Woch, cited
above, 127; Nikolova, cited above, 58; Lamy v. Belgium, 30 March
1989, 29, Series A no. 151; and Fodale v. Italy, no. 70148/01, ECHR
2006-VII).
205. The Court has held nonetheless that, even in proceedings under
Article 6 for the determination of guilt on criminal charges, there may be
restrictions on the right to a fully adversarial procedure where strictly
necessary in the light of a strong countervailing public interest, such as
national security, the need to keep secret certain police methods of
investigation or the protection of the fundamental rights of another person.
There will not be a fair trial, however, unless any difficulties caused to the
defendant by a limitation on his rights are sufficiently counterbalanced by
the procedures followed by the judicial authorities (see, for example,
Doorson v. the Netherlands, 26 March 1996, 70, Reports 1996-II; Van
Mechelen and Others v. the Netherlands, 23 April 1997, 58, Reports
1997-III; Jasper v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 27052/95, 51-53,
16 February 2000; S.N. v. Sweden, no. 34209/96, 47, ECHR 2002-V; and
Botmeh and Alami v. the United Kingdom, no. 15187/03, 37, 7 June
2007).
206. Thus, while the right to a fair criminal trial under Article 6 includes
a right to disclosure of all material evidence in the possession of the
prosecution, both for and against the accused, the Court has held that it
might sometimes be necessary to withhold certain evidence from the
defence on public-interest grounds. In Jasper (cited above, 51-53), it
78
found that the limitation on the rights of the defence had been sufficiently
counterbalanced where evidence which was relevant to the issues at trial,
but on which the prosecution did not intend to rely, was examined ex parte
by the trial judge, who decided that it should not be disclosed because the
public interest in keeping it secret outweighed the utility to the defence of
disclosure. In finding that there had been no violation of Article 6, the Court
considered it significant that it was the trial judge, with full knowledge of
the issues in the trial, who carried out the balancing exercise and that steps
had been taken to ensure that the defence were kept informed and permitted
to make submissions and participate in the decision-making process as far
as was possible without disclosing the material which the prosecution
sought to keep secret (ibid., 55-56). In contrast, in Edwards and Lewis v.
the United Kingdom ([GC], nos. 39647/98 and 40461/98, 46-48, ECHR
2004-X), the Court found that an ex parte procedure before the trial judge
was not sufficient to secure a fair trial where the undisclosed material
related, or may have related, to an issue of fact which formed part of the
prosecution case, which the trial judge, rather than the jury, had to
determine and which might have been of decisive importance to the
outcome of the applicants trials.
207. In a number of other cases where the competing public interest
entailed restrictions on the rights of the defendant in relation to adverse
evidence, relied on by the prosecutor, the Court has assessed the extent to
which counterbalancing measures can remedy the lack of a full adversarial
procedure. For example, in Luc v. Italy (no. 33354/96, 40, ECHR
2001-II), it held that it would not necessarily be incompatible with Article 6
1 for the prosecution to refer at trial to depositions made during the
investigative stage, in particular where a witness refused to repeat his
deposition in public owing to fears for his safety, if the defendant had been
given an adequate and proper opportunity to challenge the depositions,
either when made or at a later stage. It emphasised, however, that where a
conviction was based solely or to a decisive degree on depositions that had
been made by a person whom the accused had had no opportunity to
examine or to have examined, whether during the investigation or at the
trial, the rights of the defence would be restricted to an extent incompatible
with the guarantees provided by Article 6.
208. Similarly, in Doorson (cited above, 68-76), the Court found that
there was no breach of Article 6 where the identity of certain witnesses was
concealed from the defendant, on the ground that they feared reprisals. The
fact that the defence counsel, in the absence of the defendant, was able to
put questions to the anonymous witnesses at the appeal stage and to attempt
to cast doubt on their reliability and that the Court of Appeal stated in its
judgment that it had treated the evidence of the anonymous witnesses with
caution was sufficient to counterbalance the disadvantage caused to the
defence. The Court emphasised that a conviction should not be based either
79
solely or to a decisive extent on anonymous statements (see also Van

Mechelen and Others, cited above, 55). In each case, the Court
emphasised that its role was to ascertain whether the proceedings as a
whole, including the way in which evidence was taken, were fair (see
Doorson, cited above, 67).
209. The Court has referred on several occasions to the possibility of
using special advocates to counterbalance procedural unfairness caused by
lack of full disclosure in national security cases, but it has never been
required to decide whether or not such a procedure would be compatible
with either Article 5 4 or Article 6 of the Convention.
210. In Chahal (cited above), the applicant was detained under Article 5
1 (f) pending deportation on national security grounds and the Secretary of
State opposed his applications for bail and habeas corpus, also for reasons
of national security. The Court recognised (ibid., 130-31) that the use of
confidential material might be unavoidable where national security was at
stake but held that this did not mean that the executive could be free from
effective control by the domestic courts whenever they chose to assert that
national security and terrorism were involved. The Court found a violation
of Article 5 4 in the light of the fact that the High Court, which
determined the habeas corpus application, did not have access to the full
material on which the Secretary of State had based his decision. Although
there was the safeguard of an advisory panel, chaired by a Court of Appeal
judge, which had full sight of the national security evidence, the Court held
that the panel could not be considered as a court within the meaning of
Article 5 4 because the applicant was not entitled to legal representation
before it and was given only an outline of the national security case against
him and because the panel had no power of decision and its advice to the
Home Secretary was not binding and was not disclosed. The Court made
reference (ibid., 131 and 144) to the submissions of the third parties
(Amnesty International, Liberty, the Centre for Advice on Individual Rights
in Europe and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants; and see the
submissions of Justice in the present case, paragraph 198 above) in
connection with a procedure applied in national security deportation cases in
Canada, whereby the judge held an in camera hearing of all the evidence, at
which the proposed deportee was provided with a statement summarising,
as far as possible, the case against him and had the right to be represented
and to call evidence. The confidentiality of the security material was
maintained by requiring such evidence to be examined in the absence of
both the deportee and his representative. However, in these circumstances,
their place was taken by security-cleared counsel instructed by the court,
who cross-examined the witnesses and generally assisted the court to test
the strength of the States case. A summary of the evidence obtained by this
procedure, with necessary deletions, was given to the deportee. The Court
commented that it:
80
... attaches significance to the fact that, as the interveners pointed out in connection
with Article 13, ... in Canada a more effective form of judicial control has been
developed in cases of this type. This example illustrates that there are techniques
which can be employed which both accommodate legitimate security concerns about
the nature and sources of intelligence information and yet accord the individual a
substantial measure of procedural justice.
211. In Tinnelly & Sons Ltd and Others and McElduff and Others v. the
United Kingdom (10 July 1998, 78, Reports 1998-IV) and in Al-Nashif v.
Bulgaria (no. 50963/99, 93-97 and 137, 20 June 2002), the Court made
reference to its comments in Chahal about the special-advocate procedure
but without expressing any opinion as to whether such a procedure would
be in conformity with the Convention rights at issue.
(b) Application to the facts of the present case
212. Before the domestic courts, there were two aspects to the
applicants challenge to the lawfulness of their detention. Firstly, they
brought proceedings under section 30 of the 2001 Act to contest the validity
of the derogation under Article 15 of the Convention and thus the
compatibility with the Convention of the entire detention scheme. Secondly,
each applicant also brought an appeal under section 25 of the 2001 Act,
contending that the detention was unlawful under domestic law because
there were no reasonable grounds for a belief that his presence in the United
Kingdom was a risk to national security or for a suspicion that he was a
terrorist.
213. The Court does not consider it necessary to reach a separate finding
under Article 5 4 in connection with the applicants complaints that the
House of Lords was unable to make a binding order for their release, since it
has already found a violation of Article 5 1 arising from the provisions of
domestic law.
214. The applicants second ground of complaint under Article 5 4
concerns the fairness of the procedure before SIAC under section 25 of the
2001 Act to determine whether the Secretary of State was reasonable in
believing each applicants presence in the United Kingdom to be a risk to
national security and in suspecting him of being a terrorist. This is a
separate and distinct question, which cannot be said to be absorbed in the
finding of a violation of Article 5 1, and which the Court must therefore
examine.
215. The Court reiterates that although the judges sitting as SIAC were
able to consider both the open and closed material, neither the
applicants nor their legal advisers could see the closed material. Instead, the
closed material was disclosed to one or more special advocates, appointed
by the solicitor-general to act on behalf of each applicant. During the closed
sessions before SIAC, the special advocate could make submissions on
behalf of the applicant, both as regards procedural matters, such as the need
81
for further disclosure, and as to the substance of the case. However, from
the point at which the special advocate first had sight of the closed material,
he was not permitted to have any further contact with the applicant and his
representatives, save with the permission of SIAC. In respect of each appeal
against certification, SIAC issued both an open and a closed judgment.
216. The Court takes as its starting point that, as the national courts
found and it has accepted, during the period of the applicants detention the
activities and aims of the al-Qaeda network had given rise to a public
emergency threatening the life of the nation. It must therefore be borne in
mind that at the relevant time there was considered to be an urgent need to
protect the population of the United Kingdom from terrorist attack and,
although the United Kingdom did not derogate from Article 5 4, a strong
public interest in obtaining information about al-Qaeda and its associates
and in maintaining the secrecy of the sources of such information (see also,
in this connection, Fox, Campbell and Hartley, cited above, 39).
217. Balanced against these important public interests, however, was the
applicants right under Article 5 4 to procedural fairness. Although the
Court has found that, with the exception of the second and fourth applicants,
the applicants detention did not fall within any of the categories listed in
sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) of Article 5 1, it considers that the case-law
relating to judicial control over detention on remand is relevant, since in
such cases also the reasonableness of the suspicion against the detained
person is a sine qua non (see paragraph 204 above). Moreover, in the
circumstances of the present case, and in view of the dramatic impact of the
lengthy and what appeared at that time to be indefinite deprivation of
liberty on the applicants fundamental rights, Article 5 4 must import
substantially the same fair-trial guarantees as Article 6 1 in its criminal
aspect (see Garcia Alva v. Germany, no. 23541/94, 39, 13 February 2001,
and Chahal, cited above, 130-31).
218. Against this background, it was essential that as much information
about the allegations and evidence against each applicant was disclosed as
was possible without compromising national security or the safety of others.
Where full disclosure was not possible, Article 5 4 required that the
difficulties this caused were counterbalanced in such a way that each
applicant still had the possibility effectively to challenge the allegations
against him.
219. The Court considers that SIAC, which was a fully independent
court (see paragraph 91 above) and which could examine all the relevant
evidence, both closed and open, was best placed to ensure that no material
was unnecessarily withheld from the detainee. In this connection, the special
advocate could provide an important, additional safeguard through
questioning the States witnesses on the need for secrecy and through
making submissions to the judge regarding the case for additional
disclosure. On the material before it, the Court has no basis to find that
82
excessive and unjustified secrecy was employed in respect of any of the

applicants appeals or that there were not compelling reasons for the lack of
disclosure in each case.
220. The Court further considers that the special advocate could perform
an important role in counterbalancing the lack of full disclosure and the lack
of a full, open, adversarial hearing by testing the evidence and putting
arguments on behalf of the detainee during the closed hearings. However,
the special advocate could not perform this function in any useful way
unless the detainee was provided with sufficient information about the
allegations against him to enable him to give effective instructions to the
special advocate. While this question must be decided on a case-by-case
basis, the Court observes generally that, where the evidence was to a large
extent disclosed and the open material played the predominant role in the
determination, it could not be said that the applicant was denied an
opportunity effectively to challenge the reasonableness of the Secretary of
States belief and suspicions about him. In other cases, even where all or
most of the underlying evidence remained undisclosed, if the allegations
contained in the open material were sufficiently specific, it should have
been possible for the applicant to provide his representatives and the special
advocate with information with which to refute them, if such information
existed, without his having to know the detail or sources of the evidence
which formed the basis of the allegations. An example would be the
allegation made against several of the applicants that they had attended a
terrorist training camp at a stated location between stated dates; given the
precise nature of the allegation, it would have been possible for the
applicant to provide the special advocate with exonerating evidence, for
example of an alibi or of an alternative explanation for his presence there,
sufficient to permit the advocate effectively to challenge the allegation.
Where, however, the open material consisted purely of general assertions
and SIACs decision to uphold the certification and maintain the detention
was based solely or to a decisive degree on closed material, the procedural
requirements of Article 5 4 would not be satisfied.
221. The Court must, therefore, assess the certification proceedings in
respect of each of the detained applicants in the light of these criteria.
222. It notes that the open material against the sixth, seventh, eighth,
ninth and eleventh applicants included detailed allegations about, for
example, the purchase of specific telecommunications equipment,
possession of specific documents linked to named terrorist suspects and
meetings with named terrorist suspects with specific dates and places. It
considers that these allegations were sufficiently detailed to permit the
applicants effectively to challenge them. It does not, therefore, find a
violation of Article 5 4 in respect of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and
eleventh applicants.
83
223. The principal allegations against the first and tenth applicants were
that they had been involved in fund-raising for terrorist groups linked to
al-Qaeda. In the first applicants case there was open evidence of large sums
of money moving through his bank account and in respect of the tenth
applicant there was open evidence that he had been involved in raising
money through fraud. However, in each case the evidence which allegedly
provided the link between the money raised and terrorism was not disclosed
to either applicant. In these circumstances, the Court does not consider that
these applicants were in a position effectively to challenge the allegations
against them. There has therefore been a violation of Article 5 4 in respect
of the first and tenth applicants.
224. The open allegations in respect of the third and fifth applicants
were of a general nature, principally that they were members of named
extremist Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda. SIAC observed in its
judgments dismissing each of these applicants appeals that the open
evidence was insubstantial and that the evidence on which it relied against
them was largely to be found in the closed material. Again, the Court does
not consider that these applicants were in a position effectively to challenge
the allegations against them. There has therefore been a violation of
Article 5 4 in respect of the third and fifth applicants.
V. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 5 1 OF THE CONVENTION
TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH ARTICLE 13
225. The applicants argued in the alternative that the matters complained
of in relation to Article 5 4 also gave rise to a violation of Article 13. In
the light of its findings above, the Court does not consider it necessary to
examine these complaints separately.
VI. ALLEGED VIOLATION
CONVENTION
OF
ARTICLE
OF
THE
226. Finally, the applicants complained that, despite having been

unlawfully detained in breach of Article 5 1 and 4, they had no
enforceable right to compensation, in breach of Article 5 5, which
provides:
Everyone who has been the victim of arrest or detention in contravention of the
provisions of this Article shall have an enforceable right to compensation.
227. The Government reasoned that there had been no breach of

Article 5 in this case, so Article 5 5 did not apply. In the event that the
Court did find a violation of Article 5, Article 5 5 required an
enforceable right to compensation, but not that compensation be awarded
in every case. Since the Secretary of State was found by the national courts
84
reasonably to suspect that the applicants were international terrorists, as a

matter of principle they were not entitled to compensation from the national
courts.
A. Admissibility
228. The Court notes that it has found a violation of Article 5 1 in
respect of all the applicants except the second and fourth applicants, and
that it has found a violation of Article 5 4 in respect of the first, third, fifth
and tenth applicants. It follows that the second and fourth applicants
complaints under Article 5 5 are inadmissible, but that the other
applicants complaints are admissible.
B. The merits
229. The Court notes that the above violations could not give rise to an
enforceable claim for compensation by the applicants before the national
courts. It follows that there has been a violation of Article 5 5 in respect of
all the applicants, save the second and fourth applicants (see Brogan and
Others v. the United Kingdom, 29 November 1988, 67, Series A
no. 145-B, and Fox, Campbell and Hartley, cited above, 46).
VII. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 OF THE CONVENTION
230. The applicants argued in the alternative that the procedure before
SIAC was not compatible with Article 6 1 and 2 of the Convention,
which provide:
1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge
against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time
by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be
pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the
trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic
society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the
parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in
special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until
proved guilty according to law.
231. The applicants contended that Article 6 was the lex specialis of the
fair-trial guarantee. The regime under consideration represented the most
serious form of executive measure against terrorist suspects adopted within
the member States of the Council of Europe in the post-2001 period. It was
adopted to enable the United Kingdom to take proceedings against
individuals on the basis of reasonable suspicion alone, deriving from
evidence which could not be deployed in the ordinary courts. That alone
85
warranted an analysis under Article 6. The proceedings were for the

determination of a criminal charge, within the autonomous meaning adopted
under Article 6 1, and also for the determination of civil rights and
obligations. The use of closed material gave rise to a breach of Article 6.
232. In the Governments submission, Article 5 4 was the lex specialis
concerning detention and the issues should be considered under that
provision. In any event, Article 6 did not apply, because SIACs decision on
the question whether there should be detention related to special measures
of immigration control and thus determined neither a criminal charge nor
any civil right or obligation. Even if Article 6 1 did apply, there was no
violation, for the reasons set out above in respect of Article 5 4.
233. Without coming to any conclusion as to whether the proceedings
before SIAC fell within the scope of Article 6, the Court declares these
complaints admissible. It observes, however, that it has examined the issues
relating to the use of special advocates, closed hearings and lack of full
disclosure in the proceedings before SIAC above, in connection with the
applicants complaints under Article 5 4. In the light of this full
examination, it does not consider it necessary to examine the complaints
under Article 6 1.
VIII. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
234. The applicants sought compensation for the pecuniary and nonpecuniary damage sustained as a result of the violations, together with costs
and expenses, under Article 41 of the Convention, which provides:
If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols
thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only
partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to
the injured party.
The Government contended that an award of just satisfaction would be

neither necessary nor appropriate in the present case.
A. Damage
1. The applicants claims
235. The applicants submitted that monetary just satisfaction was
necessary and appropriate. When assessing quantum, guidance could be
obtained from domestic court awards in respect of unlawful detention and
also from awards made by the Court in past cases (they referred, inter alia,
to Perks and Others v. the United Kingdom, nos. 25277/94, 25279/94,
25280/94, 25282/94, 25285/94, 28048/95, 28192/95 and 28456/95,
12 October 1999, where 5,500 pounds sterling (GBP) was awarded in
respect of six days unlawful imprisonment, and Tsirlis and Kouloumpas v.
86
Greece, 29 May 1997, Reports 1997-III, where the applicants were awarded
the equivalent of GBP 17,890 and GBP 16,330 respectively in relation to
periods of thirteen and twelve months imprisonment for refusing to
perform military service).
236. The first applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 19 December 2001 and 11 March 2005, a period of three years and
eighty-three days, and the consequent mental suffering, including mental
illness. He submitted that the award should in addition take account of the
suffering experienced by his wife and family as a result of the separation
and the negative publicity. He proposed an award of GBP 234,000 to cover
non-pecuniary damage. In addition, he claimed approximately GBP 7,500 in
pecuniary damage to cover the costs of his familys visits to him in
detention and other expenses.
237. The third applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 19 December 2001 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering, including mental illness, together with the distress caused to his
wife and children. He proposed a figure of GBP 230,000 for non-pecuniary
damage, together with pecuniary damage of GBP 200 travel costs, incurred
by his wife, and a sum to cover his lost opportunity to establish himself in
business in the United Kingdom.
238. The fifth applicant claimed compensation for his detention between
19 December 2001 and 22 April 2004, his subsequent house arrest until
11 March 2005 and the consequent mental suffering, including mental
illness, together with the distress caused to his wife and children. He
proposed a figure of GBP 240,000 for non-pecuniary damage, together with
pecuniary damage of GBP 5,500, including travel and child-minding costs
incurred by his wife and money sent by her to the applicant in prison.
239. The sixth applicant claimed compensation for his detention
between 19 December 2001 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering, together with the distress caused to his wife and children. He
pecuniary damage of GBP 51,410, including his loss of earnings as a selfemployed courier and travel costs incurred by his wife.
240. The seventh applicant claimed compensation for his detention
between 9 February 2002 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering, including mental illness. He proposed a figure of GBP 197,000
for non-pecuniary damage. He did not make any claim in respect of
pecuniary damage.
241. The eighth applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 23 October 2002 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering, together with the distress caused to his wife and children. He
pecuniary damage of GBP 4,570, including money sent to him in prison by
his wife and her costs of moving house to avoid unwanted media attention.
87
242. The ninth applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 22 April 2002 and 11 March 2005, and the consequent mental
suffering, including mental illness, together with the distress caused to his
wife and children. He proposed a figure of GBP 215,000 for non-pecuniary
damage, together with pecuniary damage of GBP 7,725, including money
he had to borrow to assist his wife with household expenses, money sent to
him in prison by his wife and her travel expenses to visit him. He also asked
for a sum to cover his lost opportunity to establish himself in business in the
United Kingdom.
243. The tenth applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 14 January 2003 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering, including mental illness. He proposed a figure of GBP 144,000
for non-pecuniary damage, together with pecuniary damage of GBP 2,751,
including the loss of a weekly payment of GBP 37 he was receiving from
the National Asylum Support Service prior to his detention and the cost of
telephone calls to his legal representatives.
244. The eleventh applicant claimed compensation for his loss of liberty
between 2 October 2003 and 11 March 2005 and the consequent mental
suffering. He proposed a figure of GBP 95,000 for non-pecuniary damage
but did not claim any pecuniary damage.
2. The Governments submissions
245. The Government, relying on the Courts judgment in McCann and
Others v. the United Kingdom (27 September 1995, 219, Series A
no. 324), contended that, as a matter of principle, the applicants were not
entitled to receive any form of financial compensation because they were
properly suspected, on objective and reasonable grounds, of involvement in
terrorism and had failed to displace that suspicion.
246. The Government pointed out that Part 4 of the 2001 Act was passed
and the derogation made in good faith, in an attempt to deal with what was
perceived to be an extremely serious situation amounting to a public
emergency threatening the life of the nation. The core problem with the
detention scheme under the 2001 Act, as identified by SIAC and the House
of Lords, was that it did not apply to United Kingdom as well as foreign
nationals. Following the House of Lords judgment, urgent consideration
was given to the question what should be done with the applicants in the
light of the public emergency and it was decided that a system of control
orders should be put in place. Against this background, it could not be
suggested that the Government had acted cynically or in flagrant disregard
of the individuals rights.
247. In addition, the Government submitted that no just satisfaction
should be awarded in respect of any procedural violation found by the Court
(for example, under Article 5 4 or 5), since it was not possible to
speculate what would have happened had the breach not occurred (see
88
Kingsley v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 35605/97, ECHR 2002-IV, and
Hood v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 27267/95, ECHR 1999-I).
248. In the event that the Court did decide to make a monetary award, it
should examine carefully in respect of each head of claim whether there was
sufficient supporting evidence, whether the claim was sufficiently closely
connected to the violation and whether the claim was reasonable as to
quantum.
3. The Courts assessment
249. The Court reiterates, firstly, that it has not found a violation of
Article 3 in the present case. It follows that it cannot make any award in
respect of mental suffering, including mental illness, allegedly arising from
the conditions of detention or the open-ended nature of the detention
scheme in Part 4 of the 2001 Act.
250. It has, however, found violations of Article 5 1 and 5 in respect
of the first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh
applicants and a violation of Article 5 4 in respect of the first, third, fifth
and tenth applicants. In accordance with Article 41, it could, therefore,
award these applicants monetary compensation, if it considered such an
award to be necessary. The Court has a wide discretion to determine when
an award of damages should be made, and frequently holds that the finding
of a violation is sufficient satisfaction without any further monetary award
(see, among many examples, Nikolova v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 31195/96,
76, ECHR 1999-II). In exercising its discretion the Court will have regard
to all the circumstances of the case, including the nature of the violations
found, as well as any special circumstances pertaining to the context of the
case.
251. The Court reiterates that in the McCann and Others judgment (cited
above, 219), it declined to make any award in respect of pecuniary or nonpecuniary damage arising from the violation of Article 2 of the Convention,
having regard to the fact that the three terrorist suspects who were killed had
been intending to plant a bomb in Gibraltar. It considers that the present
case is distinguishable, since it has not been established that any of the
applicants has engaged, or attempted to engage, in any act of terrorist
violence.
252. The decision whether to award monetary compensation in this case
and, if so, the amount of any such award, must take into account a number
of factors. The applicants were detained for long periods, in breach of
Article 5 1, and the Court has, in the past, awarded large sums in just
satisfaction in respect of unlawful detention (see, for example, Assanidze v.
Georgia [GC], no. 71503/01, ECHR 2004-II, or the cases cited by the
applicants in paragraph 235 above). The present case is, however, very
different. In the aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States of
America of 11 September 2001, in a situation which the domestic courts and
89
this Court have accepted was a public emergency threatening the life of the
nation, the Government were under an obligation to protect the population
of the United Kingdom from terrorist violence. The detention scheme in
Part 4 of the 2001 Act was devised in good faith, as an attempt to reconcile
the need to prevent the commission of acts of terrorism with the obligation
under Article 3 of the Convention not to remove or deport any person to a
country where he could face a real risk of ill-treatment (see paragraph 166
above). Although the Court, like the House of Lords, has found that the
derogating measures were disproportionate, the core part of that finding was
that the legislation was discriminatory in targeting non-nationals only.
Moreover, following the House of Lords judgment, the detention scheme
under the 2001 Act was replaced by a system of control orders under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. All the applicants in respect of whom the
Court has found a violation of Article 5 1 became, immediately upon
release in March 2005, the subject of control orders. It cannot therefore be
assumed that, even if the violations in the present case had not occurred, the
applicants would not have been subjected to some restriction on their
liberty.
253. Against this background, the Court finds that the circumstances
justify the making of an award substantially lower than that which it has had
occasion to make in other cases of unlawful detention. It awards 3,900 euros
(EUR) to the first, third and sixth applicants; EUR 3,400 to the fifth and
ninth applicants; EUR 3,800 to the seventh applicant; EUR 2,800 to the
eighth applicant; EUR 2,500 to the tenth applicant; and EUR 1,700 to the
eleventh applicant, together with any tax that may be chargeable.
B. Costs and expenses
254. The applicants made no claim for costs in respect of the domestic
proceedings, since these had been recovered as a result of the order made by
the House of Lords. Their total claim for the costs of the proceedings before
the Court totalled GBP 144,752.64, inclusive of value-added tax (VAT).
This included 599 hours worked by solicitors at GBP 70 per hour plus VAT,
342.5 hours worked by counsel at GBP 150 per hour plus VAT and
85 hours worked by senior counsel at GBP 200 per hour plus VAT in
preparing the application, observations and just satisfaction claim before the
Chamber and Grand Chamber, together with disbursements such as experts
reports and the costs of the hearing before the Grand Chamber. They
submitted that it had been necessary to instruct a number of different
counsel, with different areas of specialism, given the range of issues to be
addressed and the evidence involved, concerning events which took place
over a ten-year period.
255. The Government submitted that the claim was excessive. In
particular, the number of hours spent by solicitors and counsel in preparing
90
the case could not be justified, especially since each of the applicants had
been represented throughout the domestic proceedings during which
detailed instructions must have been taken and consideration given to
virtually all the issues arising in the application to the Court. The hourly
rates charged by counsel were, in addition, excessive.
256. The Court reiterates that an applicant is entitled to be reimbursed
those costs actually and necessarily incurred to prevent or redress a breach
of the Convention, to the extent that such costs are reasonable as to quantum
(see Kingsley, cited above, 49). While it accepts that the number of
applicants must, inevitably, have necessitated additional work on the part of
their representatives, it notes that most of the individualised material filed
with the Court dealt with the applicants complaints under Article 3 of the
Convention and their claims for just satisfaction arising out of those
complaints, which the Court has rejected. In addition, it accepts the
Governments argument that a number of the issues, particularly those
relating to the derogation under Article 15 of the Convention, had already
been aired before the national courts, which should have reduced the time
needed for the preparation of this part of the case. Against this background,
it considers that the applicants should be awarded a total of EUR 60,000 in
respect of costs and expenses, together with any tax that may be chargeable
to the applicants.
C. Default interest
257. The Court considers it appropriate that the default interest rate
should be based on the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank,
to which should be added three percentage points.
FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT UNANIMOUSLY

1. Declares the second applicants complaints under Articles 3 and 13 of
the Convention inadmissible and the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh applicants complaints under
Articles 3 and 13 admissible (see paragraphs 123-25 of the judgment);
2. Holds that there has been no violation of Article 3 of the Convention,
taken alone or in conjunction with Article 13, in respect of the first,
third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh
applicants (see paragraphs 126-36);
3. Dismisses the applicants preliminary objections that the Government
should be precluded from raising a defence under Article 5 1 (f) of the
91
Convention or challenging the House of Lords finding that the

derogation under Article 15 was invalid (see paragraphs 153-59);
4. Declares the applicants complaints under Article 5 1 of the
Convention admissible (see paragraph 160);
5. Holds that there has been no violation of Article 5 1 of the Convention
in respect of the second and fourth applicants (see paragraphs 162-68);
6. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 5 1 of the Convention
in respect of the first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and
eleventh applicants (see paragraphs 162-90);
7. Holds that it is not necessary to examine the applicants complaints
under Articles 5 1 and 14 taken together (see paragraph 192);
8. Declares the second and fourth applicants complaints under Article 5
4 of the Convention inadmissible and the first, third, fifth, sixth,
Article 5 4 admissible (see paragraphs 200-01);
9. Holds that it is not necessary to examine the first, third, fifth, sixth,
Articles 5 4 that the House of Lords could not make a binding order
for their release (see paragraph 213);
in respect of the first, third, fifth and tenth applicants but that there was
no violation of Article 5 4 in respect of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth
and eleventh applicants (see paragraphs 202-24);
under Articles 5 1 and 13 taken together (see paragraph 225);
12. Declares the second and fourth applicants complaints under Article 5
5 of the Convention inadmissible and the first, third, fifth, sixth,
Article 5 5 admissible (see paragraph 228);
in respect of the first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and
eleventh applicants (see paragraph 229);
92
14. Declares the applicants complaints under Article 6 of the Convention

admissible (see paragraph 233);
under Article 6 of the Convention (see paragraph 233);
16. Holds that the respondent State is to pay, within three months, the
following amounts, to be converted into pounds sterling at the rate
applicable at the date of settlement:
(a) in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, EUR 3,900
(three thousand nine hundred euros) to the first, third and sixth
applicants; EUR 3,400 (three thousand four hundred euros) to the fifth
applicant; EUR 3,800 (three thousand eight hundred euros) to the
seventh applicant; EUR 2,800 (two thousand eight hundred euros) to the
eighth applicant; EUR 3,400 (three thousand four hundred euros) to the
ninth applicant; EUR 2,500 (two thousand five hundred euros) to the
tenth applicant; and EUR 1,700 (one thousand seven hundred euros) to
the eleventh applicant, plus any tax that may be chargeable;
(b) to the applicants jointly, in respect of costs and expenses,
EUR 60,000 (sixty thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable
to the applicants;
(c) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until
settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a
rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank
during the default period plus three percentage points (see
paragraphs 249-57);
17. Dismisses the remainder of the applicants claim for just satisfaction.
Done in English and in French, and delivered at a public hearing in the
Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 19 February 2009.
Michael OBoyle
Deputy Registrar
Jean-Paul Costa
President

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CONSEIL

COUR EUROPENNE DES DROITS DE LHOMME

CASE OF A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

In the case of A. and Others v. the United Kingdom,

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

4. The application was allocated to the Fourth Section of the Court

The Court heard addresses by Mr Emmerson and Mr Sales and their

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

Public emergency in the United Kingdom

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

SIAC thus quashed the derogation order of 11 November 2001 and

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

been no derogation. The applicants were in a comparable situation to United

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

medical reports concerning his mental health. SIAC observed in its

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

35. On 17 December 2001 the second applicant was certified by the

SIAC continued by explaining the findings it had made against the

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

3. The third applicant

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

believed to be involved in international terrorism to justify a reasonable suspicion that

5. The fifth applicant

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

SIAC referred to open surveillance reports which showed the applicant

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

amounted to house arrest with further controls. In its review judgment of

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

of matters which, he suggested, should be regarded as favourable to the Appellants

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

9. The ninth applicant

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

He was, said [his counsel], a genuine refugee, a member of no organisation or

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

66. On 2 October 2003 the Secretary of State certified him as an

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

SIAC continued by noting the inconsistencies in the applicants various

E. The conditions of detention and the effect of detention on the

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

77. For the purposes of the present proceedings, the Government

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

An issue I find to be of the greatest concern relates to the tacit acceptance of

F. The release of the fifth applicant on bail

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT

For the purposes of the Act, an organisation was proscribed if: